The Riddle of Sartorius
by Lady Liadan
Summary: The wizarding world breathes a collective sigh of relief at the demise of Lord Voldemort - and while Lucius Malfoy has a few personal reasons for feeling at ease, there's still that nagging hankering for the good old days...
1. Family Matters

**Introduction**

This story is the fourth (can you believe I'm still doing this!) in the Sartorius cycle. I think if you hung with me this far, I'll spare you the introductory timeline this time, gentle reader...

Predecessor stories to this fanfic are:

_The Secret of Sartorius_ ( Set 1 year before "The Philosopher's Stone)  
_The Promise of Sartorius_ (Set during "The Order of the Phoenix")  
_The Legacy of Satorius_ (Set immediately after "The Order of the Phoenix", also contains summary of the previous 2 stories in the introductory chapter)

_The Riddle of Sartorius_ is set a little under 3 years after "Legacy". It features more of what you loved - or what you hated - about my previous stories. The usual disclaimers are in place. And of course once again my thanks go to J.K. Rowling for the creation of the wonderful Harry Potter universe, and to Jason Isaacs for his marvellous portrayal of the sneering, the arrogant, the one and only LUCIUS MALFOY!

May he return to us in style this fall with the release of "Goblet of Fire"!

* * *

**Family Matters**

_"Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements." (Queen Elizabeth II)_

The dark, mossy walls of the manor seemed to crouch down in self-defense against a sweltering, relentless July sun. For weeks now it hadn't rained; not a single breath of wind had stirred the gnarled old trees of the park, and the heat had begun to even penetrate into the cool, dusky hallways of the ancient residence of the pureblood wizarding family of the Malfoys.

The usually overzealous house elves, who were working in the garden irrigating the drooping roses, looked oddly despondent as they lugged around their huge watering cans, making their way from the deep well at the side of the house across the clipped lawns to the immaculately groomed flower beds. In the east turret of the mansion Hermes, Lucius' eagle owl, and the other six family owls blinked sleepily in the dusty light, their beaks gaping and their wings spread away from their bodies as they tried to keep themselves cool.

Eleanor Malfoy-Sartorius looked up in irritation from her scroll of parchment as a splotch of moisture dripped on the ink of her freshly written reply to the editor of the "Annual Annotations of the Magical Defense League". She replaced her griffin feather in her ink well, blotted at the smudged writing and ran her hands over her face.

"Holy Hecate," she mumbled realizing she was drenched in sweat. She wiped her slick fingers on the skirts of her thin summer robes and bent backwards, straightening the kinks out of her spine. Her eyes surveyed her lavishly furnished study and came to rest on a tall standing clock carved from walnut wood. While the central dial of the clock indicated the time similar to a muggle time piece, the top face showed her the whereabouts of the current Malfoy family members.

She ignored her own gold pointer. A slim polished silver hand adorned with elaborate scrollwork bore the name "Draco" and indicated a position on the clock face marked as "Away on Business". Another, broader dial of blackened silver with the lettering "Lucius" showed her husband's status as "Attending Ministry Meeting".

She smirked in anticipation: he would be coming home in quite a temper and require some skilful soothing to take his mind of the day's aggravations. It was one of her duties as his wife that she would never regard as a chore, despite the fact that they had been handfasted for almost three years now.

For a moment she closed her eyes as she imagined his strong, slender hands on her body, his lips claiming her mouth, and the temperature in her sun-baked study seemed to reach fever-pitch. She shook her head with a sigh. If they had any sense they would magically chill some water in their large sunken tub in the bath room and carefully avoid touching at all; otherwise in this heat they might spontaneously combust or get glued together permanently.

She looked at the clock once more and her face lit up in a smile as she regarded a small, colorfully enameled hand that spelled "Lavinia" and pointed to a scroll with the inscription "Playing". She had spent enough time on her work already.

Resolutely she turned back to her letter, picked up her wand to fix the smeared ink, signed her name to the document, addressed and rolled up the parchment and called for a house elf to take the day's correspondence to the owlery. A second flick of her wand enveloped her in a cooling breeze, and with a soft rustle of her robes she made her way out of her study and down a dim, wood-paneled hallway.

She could make out her daughter's voice before she had even come close to the nursery.

"Let Lala!"she heard, followed by a loud, exuberant giggle.

The sounds made her quicken her step and soon she had pushed open an old, heavy oak door and looked into a sun-drenched high room painted all over with dragons, hippogriffs, unicorns and other magical creatures that galloped, pranced and flew across the walls, spewing fire, flicking their manes and preening their wings in a riot of movement and color.

In the center of the room an elderly witch reclined on a settee and watched a house elf and a little girl wrestle each other over a miniature children's broom.

Eleanor leaned quietly against the door frame and took in the scene before her without announcing her presence: the witch was Maleficia Babbitt, also affectionately known as "Nana". She had been Draco's nanny when he had been a little boy, and Lucius Malfoy had taken her back into his service to help with the upbringing of his youngest child.

Eleanor had had mixed feelings about this at first, having been raised muggle-style and without any servants or even house-elves by her parents, but Lucius had not bent to her arguments, insisting that as a Malfoy she had representative duties and could not be expected to be holed up with her offspring at all times. Despite her initial resistance she had soon found that she actually trusted the older woman, who seemed happy to be back with the family and able to keep tabs on her former charge, Draco, and who had considerably more experience in bringing up children than she had.

With her own mother dead and no other female friends and relatives around to ask for advice, Nana had soon become indispensable. If she was honest with herself, Eleanor occasionally even cherished the liberty she enjoyed with the nanny taking care of so many of her chores. And if she suffered any attacks of a bad conscience, Lucius was always quick to quench them.

She was even more apt to listen to him as she found him to be a very loyal, patient and affectionate father. It had been one of her worries that his usual shortness of temper and self-centeredness might spell trouble, but perhaps due to some inherent magic in the huge green eyes of their two-year-old, the sneering, arrogant head of the Malfoys just melted in the presence of his daughter, and one of Eleanor's most delightful indulgences consisted in watching Lucius and Lavinia play.

Her thoughts now led her attention back to her daughter and she smiled as she watched the little girl finally wrest the broom from the hands of the elf.

"I can do it!" she declared with a proud Malfoy toss of her head. "Lala can fly. Like Draco! Watch!"

Eleanor looked on as she mounted the broom the way she undoubtedly had seen her half-brother do. There she stood, pale silver Malfoy hair thrown back over her shoulders, grasping the broom.

"Fly!" she commanded, frowning in concentration. "Fly now!"

The red-haired witch shook her head. She heard generations of Malfoy arrogance and self-assurance in that little voice. Lavinia, named after Lucius' mother, had inherited her own mother's deep green eyes, but the arched slant of her eyebrows, the proud, curved lips and the straight-backed posture had come directly from the Malfoy line of the family.

"No, mistress mustn't," pleaded the house elf. "It's too dangerous! What if mistress falls off!"

Maleficia stretched in her seat. "It's okay Libby, I doubt…"

At that moment the girl had spotted her mother and the broom clattered to the ground, temporarily forgotten.

"Mommy!" she shouted and ran over to the door, flinging her arms around Eleanor's skirts. The witch bent down and lifted up her child.

"Here, my little owl, I'll make you fly without a broom!" she said, twirling the two of them around in a circle. Lavinia leaned back and spread her arms like wings, giggling excitedly.

Out of the corner of her eye Eleanor saw the nanny get up and slowed down, feeling somewhat self-conscious about her playfulness. She gently shushed her daughter's demands of "More, Mommy, more!" cradled the girl to her chest and approached the older woman.

Maleficia bowed her head.

"Mistress," she said. "It is good to see you. Is anything amiss?"

Eleanor sighed inwardly. She would have preferred a less formal address, but when she had offered the witch first name basis at the very beginning of their relationship, Mrs. Babbitt had declined.

"I couldn't, mistress," she had said. "Mr. Malfoy has always been master when I served here. When I looked after Draco, the first Mrs. Malfoy was the mistress. Now you are his wife, so the title belongs to you. I know this may seem old-fashioned to you, seeing that so many modern witches and wizards have adopted a less formal style – undoubtedly corrupted by uncivilized muggle habits – but then I'm an old-fashioned witch."

Eleanor snapped out of her reminiscences, ran her hand over the silky-soft hair of the little girl in her arms and shook her head.

"Everything is fine, Maleficia," she said. "I am done with my work for today and merely wanted to see how everyone is holding up in this heat."

She smiled fondly at Lavinia.

"Seems someone here doesn't mind at all!"

Mrs. Babbitt considered this.

"Well, she is a summer child," she said. "Leos generally tolerate heat quite well. Of course I used some cooling spells, too. I wouldn't let her get into a sweat and then catch cold, mistress."

Hearing the slight tone of defensiveness that had crept into the nanny's voice, Eleanor quickly smiled.

"Don't worry. I know you take the best care of her," she said, intent on changing the subject. "So how has she been doing? I didn't realize someone gave her a broom."

"Oh, young master Draco brought it with him as a little present about a week ago. She loves it. Now that she's seen him on his Firebolt, I think her chosen career of the moment is seeker for the Holyhead Harpies. Of course it's just a play-broom."

"I can fly," Lavinia piped up proudly. "I catch a ball now, like Draco."

Eleanor smiled. They had all gone to see Draco play and win in an amateur cup game a few weeks ago. He had continued with quidditch after his graduation from Hogwarts, and how held a position as seeker for the Sussex Serpents, a team in the non-professional leagues. His little half-sister had been jumping up and down in the stands following him with her eyes and yelling with excitement. Eleanor suspected that their excursion had started a life-long obsession, and she realized that she found Draco's thoughtful gift quite touching.

Of course if faced with an ardent fan like his little half-sister, even a nineteen-year old wizard who was generally preoccupied with playing it cool had to slip up and give in to sentiment occasionally.

"Mind you, I wouldn't really let her…," began the nanny, but this time Eleanor interrupted her.

"Maleficia, sometimes I think you believe I harbor the secret suspicion that you are out to plot little Lavinia's demise. Let me assure you: if Lucius and I didn't have the utmost confidence in your abilities and your loyalty, you'd be the first to know. Of course you would never endanger her."

The older witch gave her a slightly pained smile.

"Thank you, mistress."

"Well, my little seeker, how about we have the house-elves make us some nice cool strawberry punch? And then we can decide what's going to be for dinner tonight. Daddy should be home, soon. And I bet he's quite hungry."

Eleanor watched Lavinia nod excitedly. "I want to make a picture for Daddy. A picture how I fly! Libby! Pens!"

The witch set her daughter back on the floor and crouched down so she could look into the little girl's face.

"Now, now Lavinia, what did Mommy tell you about speaking to the house elves? Do you remember?"

She fought to retain a stern look as she saw the famous Malfoy frown move into place. For a moment Lavinia avoided her eyes and pursed her lips, but eventually she answered.

"Lala says 'please'," she said quietly, then looked up and called: "Libby, bring pens, please!"

She looked back at her mother.

"Daddy doesn't say 'please'," she announced.

Eleanor sighed inwardly.

"Your Daddy never had a mommy who told him to. That's why."

Lavinia considered this.

"Why not?"

"Because she died when your Daddy was born."

"Why?"

"Because sometimes people die."

Another 'why?' was already forming on Lavinia's lips, but just then Libby showed up with a pretty carved wood box of crayons and several sheets of parchment, and the short lesson in family history was temporarily postponed.

Eleanor noticed that Mrs. Babbitt regard her curiously as she straightened up, smoothed down her robes and took her seat in a deep easy chair to watch her daughter settle in with her drawing materials.

"Far be it from me to comment on your education of your daughter, but do you really think she should be instructed to address mere house-elves in this manner? I am sure the master…"

The younger witch cut her off.

"I am aware of Lucius' attitude with regards to the servants. I do not share it. When Lavinia is old enough to decide she can make up her own mind about it. But for now in my presence she will follow my rules."

Another house elf interrupted them, bringing a tray with three glasses filled with pale pink strawberry punch, and to bridge an awkward silence Eleanor reached for the latest edition of _Witch Weekly_, which lay on a small coffee table next to her. A headline on the cover alerted her, and quickly she leafed through the magazine until she read the whole short article.

_

* * *

"I Married a Death Eater"_

_Narcissa Black's new, controversial autobiography is now on sale at _Flourish & Blotts_ in Diagon Alley, _The Four Elements_ bookstore in the Strand, and _Gavin's Grimoires_ of Hogsmeade._

_For those who are eager for an inside glimpse into the private sphere of the dark wizards who formed the core following of the late You-Know-Who, Ms. Black's book will leave few questions unanswered. The quiet and retiring home-maker and mother was suddenly dragged into the limelight of public attention over three years ago during the spectacular arrest and trial of her ex-husband as a follower of the Dark Lord. _

_Now she writes with unflinching candor about her betrothal and marriage to one of the most influential and wealthy pureblood wizards of our generation. Mr. Malfoy has always caused strong reactions in those who have encountered him: envy, admiration, fear and hate, to name just a few. _

_After the many years Ms. Black has spent at her former husband's side she is now in a unique position to reveal this enigmatic man as we have never known him before. Here is an excerpt from the chapter _The Dark Secret of the Vault

_"I had always been aware that he had a cruel streak in him, but coming upon this scene of carnage in the dungeons of our very home sickened me. At least four or five dead and dying muggles lay on the floor. I was too distraught to count and there was so much blood! _

_Despite the fact that everyone was hooded and masked the slant of his shoulders revealed him to me, and as he turned and spoke I wished I could have stopped my ears and run away. But I remembered my little son, and for his sake I kept my face expressionless..."_

_In the wake of the developments that have led to the demise of the Dark Lord, this courageous witch's voice adds depth and interest to one of the darkest chapters in recent history. As sister to the notorious Bellatrix Lestrange and wife to the controversial Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Black is uniquely qualified to take us behind the scenes and let us in on the murderous secrets of the feared society of the Death Eaters._

_"I Married a Death Eater" is a riveting must-read for anyone, who has been trembling under the dread spell of You-Know-Who's reign of horror._

* * *

"Oh dear!" breathed Eleanor and shut the magazine. "Talk about pounding the last nail into the coffin…"

Just then a muffled crash reverberated through the heated silence of the house, and a moment later Libby, the house elf, who had been crouching on the floor passing crayons to little Lavinia blanched and stiffened.

"Master's summons…" she gasped in terror and disapparated with a soft popping noise.

Eleanor got up.

"Maleficia, take care of Lavinia for a bit, if you will. I am afraid by the sound of it Lucius has not had a very pleasing day at work."

She gathered her robes and left the room.

"Wonder if he's seen _Witch Weekly _yet," she muttered darkly. "Of all the times for her to choose to pick a bone with him, this is the worst…"


	2. A New Order

**A New Order**

_"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." (Henry David Thoreau)_

Lucius Malfoy had not seen a copy of either _Witch Weekly_ or Narcissa's book. He stood in the middle of the marble entrance hall of the manor and angrily rubbed at a barked shin. Before him in a twisted heap of broken wood and metal lay a small children's tricycle, and Libby the house elf cowered at his feet wringing her hands.

"You stupid oaf of an elf! How often do I have to tell you to remove Lavinia's playthings from the entrance hall where people apparate? This is the second time this week I'm landing on top of one of her toys. Are you trying to break my neck on purpose! I've just about had enough of this! It's time someone taught you a lesson! Stay still, you little useless piece of filth!"

With a quick flick of his wrist he hefted his heavy silver-tipped cane and flipped it over so it vaguely resembled a golf club. Libby stood rooted to the spot, whimpering, and didn't dare move a muscle as he swung and hit her half across the hall with it. He followed the graceful arch of her flight with his lips curving in grim satisfaction when a cry alerted him.

A woman in pale blue robes with flaming red hair pinned up at the back of her head had appeared at the bottom of the hallway stairs and now ducked with a squawk of alarm as the elf barely cleared the air above her and impacted with one of the columns with a resounding smack. The elf slid down the length of the marble and collapsed in a stunned heap on the floor, and Lucius' lips compressed in a thin line as his wife approached him. He could have done without her as a witness.

"Lucius, for Hecate's sake, that's just mean!" she reproached him. "Was that really necessary?"

He flipped his cane back upright and prodded the destroyed toy with its silver tip accusingly.

"Yes, it was," he growled. "That stupid elf has one thing to do: tidy up after Lavinia. Yet I keep apparating on top of her things. I'm still trying to replace the rather expensive and rare Chinese toy dragon I broke last time I came home."

She cast a quick glance back over her shoulder, where Libby was slowly and painfully getting back on her feet and hobbled off sniffing most pitifully, and for a moment he was free to look at her slim, graceful figure outlined under the clinging light silk of her summer robes. Then she turned back to him.

"I'm sorry Lucius," she said gently. "I know things are bad enough at work these days and you don't need this kind of aggravation at home…"

He quickly strode forward over the pieces of metal and laid one arm around her waist while the forefinger of the hand that was holding his cane sealed her lips.

"Ssssh," he admonished her, a warning undertone in his voice. "Don't you apologize for the servants! Unless you want me to forget myself and treat you like one…"

He felt her shiver briefly as she settled her body against his and he inhaled the faint signature frankincense scent of her hair.

"Don't tempt me," she whispered against his neck. "I might just take you up on it."

Her hands slipped under his light traveling cloak and trailed over his chest, her fingers feeling delightfully cool through the thin linen of his shirt. Her nails curved in a soft scratch over one of his nipples, and he tightened the embrace.

"In this heat, my dear… I call that dedication," he purred into her ear. "Apologize all you want, and I might not let you go to sleep at all tonight."

A soft, knowing giggle answered him.

"Oh, Lucius, you cannot believe how incredibly sorry that makes me…"

Her green eyes sparkled with excitement as she looked up at him now, but just as he bent to kiss her, the muffled crack of an apparition interrupted him. He turned with a brief exasperated snort, not letting go of the slender body of his wife and faced the haggard, shabbily dressed figure of ex-minister Cornelius Fudge.

"Hm, Lucius," huffed the older wizard. "Almost didn't catch up with you there."

He patted his rather threadbare robes for imaginary dust.

Lucius sighed.

"Fudge, we left it at seven for dinner with the others. What are you coming after me for?"

The former minister looked flustered.

"Oh, errm, I must have misunderstood. Of course I can leave again…" he trailed off despondently.

The blond wizard waved the offer away magnanimously.

"Don't worry about it, my good man." He clapped his hands."Nibbs! – Show our guest into the green salon and serve him some refreshments and something to drink! Fudge, have the elf bring you some of my latest batch of single malt. You'll enjoy it. I will be with you in a few minutes."

The ex-minister shuffled out of the entrance hall, following the small house elf that led him away.

"What's he doing here?" asked Eleanor quietly. "He looks a bit rough round the edges, doesn't he?"

Lucius teasing, playful tone had changed to a conspiratory and somewhat urgent whisper.

"That's why I came home somewhat early today. We're having some guests tonight, about twelve witches and wizards from the ministry plus Fudge. We need to discuss the current state of affairs. Things have reached boiling point and something will have to be done. Fudge is one of the party; and yes, he's been in a rather pitiful way since he's lost the election. – Bit of a drinking problem and some trouble with his better half I'm afraid. But he may still prove useful."

The blond wizard laid his hands on his wife's shoulders and looked into her eyes.

"I will need you to organize a stylish but informal dinner for seven o'clock while I get a few things taken care of before our guests arrive. Don't hold back, my dear, blow them away for me – oh and getting everyone's tongue loosened a bit would not do any harm, either, so tell the elves to be free with the wine. I know you always manage to surpass my expectations."

He moved in to kiss her heatedly. "I know it's terribly short notice, but it's important and I will try to pay you back later," he promised her.

She smiled back at him, licking her lips.

"You know, Lavinia will be so disappointed if she has to dine by herself," she told him. "She has prepared a little surprise of her own for you."

For a moment Eleanor thought she actually saw something akin to guilt flit behind the cool grey eyes of the man who held her.

"Tell her, I'll make it up to her. Tell her, I'll read her another chapter of _Morgana__ the Merciless_ for a bed-time story tomorrow."

The red-haired witch lifted an eyebrow.

"Fine, two chapters," he promised.

"Uh, that's not it, my dear. You'll give Maleficia another sleepless night if you do that. You know how exciting and gruesome that story is."

Lucius kissed her again.

"But Lavinia loves it so! And she is a young Malfoy, we need to give her some good role models to emulate, don't you agree."

His wife just shook her head.

"Lavinia the Merciless Malfoy. Now I see what you have in mind… Sometimes your educational concepts give me goosebumps, my dear."

"Oh, come on," he coaxed her. "You're the right one talking about goosebumps: I shudder every time you make her say 'thank you' and 'please' to the house elves. Now be a darling, put on something that will make all our male guests unable to think straight, set the house elves to work, and keep my little girl from thinking I'm a rotten scoundrel for abandoning her tonight."

He released her with a third kiss, and as she turned to walk away gave he a playful slap on her backside with the end of his cane. She whirled back with a small squeak of surprise and wriggled an accusing finger at him.

"Watch your manners Lucius Octavian Malfoy! Or I'm warning you: one of these days I will turn that cane of yours into a large wobbly muggle licorice stick."

He smirked as he watched her throw back her head and stalk from the entrance hall in mock outrage, robes flowing behind her. Then, with a sigh he pulled out his wand to vanish the sorry remnants of Lavinia's toy. Coming home felt more and more of a respite with every passing day, but to leave the vexing developments at the Ministry of Magic behind got harder and harder. He hoped that tonight's meeting would help them fight back against the intolerable turn events had taken over the last year.

* * *

Lucius bent sideways towards his wife and refilled her cut crystal goblet with some pale golden wine from a carafe. They had both gone easy on their drinks during their lavish dinner and she was now lifting her second glass to him in a small gesture of thanks.

His gaze moved down from her smiling eyes and arched mouth and lingered on the low-cut bodice of her dress: an elegant, slinky affair tailored from swirling amethyst-colored spider silk. It had certainly caused old Daimon Spofford to nearly trip over his long cloak when she had swept into the drawing room earlier to greet their guests. He suppressed a self-satisfied, proprietary smirk and passed the carafe on to Cornelius Fudge who sat on his other side and eagerly took it from him to replenish his glass.

"Please, my friends, help yourselves," he encouraged the dinner party and clapped his hands to call the house elves. "Fetch more wine and bring us dessert."

Soon the house elves had removed the last traces of their dinner and vanished crumbs and left-overs off the white damasked table-cloth. The enchanted harp in the corner of the room broke into a soft ballad tune and fresh plates appeared before the guests. A slim, dark-haired witch burped delicately into her serviette and blinked sleepily at their host.

"Mr. Malfoy, you are killing us with kindness," she reproached him. "I couldn't possibly eat any more."

A moment later a small pot-bellied house elf apparated in the center of the table next to a scrollworked metal contraption that held balanced on top of it a large cast iron pan. He wore a small pale cream tea cozy on his head, in lieu of a chef's hat, and held a long lit fidibus in one hand and a flagon filled with amber liquid in the other. With a deep, nervous bow to everyone he slowly approached the pan, tipped out the bottle over its contents and set fire to it. A moment later blue flames hissed upwards towards the ceiling and caused several witches and wizards to cry out in panic and start back from the table.

Lucius cocked an inquiring eyebrow at Eleanor who had planned the evening's entertainment, but as she stayed serenely calm in her seat and watched the spectacle, he immediately composed himself to show his guests that everything was perfectly under control.

A few seconds later the flames slowly died down and a most delightful aroma and scent of oranges and molasses filled the high dining room. Everyone now bent forwards with exclamations of wonder, their noses pointing towards the skillet. Lucius shot his wife a smug smile and then addressed the kitchen elf, who had begun to fill everyone's plates with dainty, parchment-thin, rolled up pancakes.

"You are quite a show-off, aren't you Eckles?" he growled, and almost caused the already stage-frightened creature to drop Fudge's pancakes onto the spotless table cloth.

As everyone was eating with relish, including the witch who had declared she could not face another morsel of food, Lucius leaned in to Eleanor.

"Very clever and impressive – perfect climax for a very well-thought out dinner, my dear," he murmured. "Your idea?"

He watched her pink tongue lap dreamily at a drop of sticky orange sauce that stubbornly stuck to the underside of her spoon. She seemed to be making up her mind about something.

"You like it?" she asked. "My mum found it in a cookbook, and Eckles did a great job in getting the practicalities set up. He is really quite an extraordinary chef, you know."

Lucius lifted a spoonful of pancake to his mouth and battled with the sneaking suspicion that his late mother-in-law had most likely been consulting a muggle cook book. Then the warm, fragrant citrus taste of the dessert melted on his tongue, and suddenly and inexplicably muggles seemed to be the least important concern in the universe.

The quiet murmur of conversations filled the room when finally the last dessert spoon was laid back on its plate and house elves served coffee and expensive cognac to the guests.

Lucius dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his serviette and leaned over to the ex-minister conversing in a low whisper. The older wizard nodded, blinked and then gently tapped his coffee spoon against his cognac snifter. The talk around the table died down, as everyone looked up expectantly.

Fudge snorted with the effort to push back his chair and get his feet under him, but finally he stood and addressed the company in his usual, self-assured, sonorous voice.

"My friends, I am exceedingly glad to see you all here tonight. First of all let me thank our host, Lucius Malfoy, who – with his usual generosity – has provided us with this sumptuous feast and the privacy of his home where we can freely talk about the recent alarming events at the Ministry that are having us all concerned.

I do not have to remind you of the memorable and startling developments that have finally lifted from us the horrific threat of You-Know-Who's ascent to total domination of the wizarding world. The Dark Lord is no longer with us, and an excellent young wizard paid with his life to ensure that this time around the demise of our foe will be irreversible and permanent."

Fudge's hand trembled slightly as he lifted his glass of cognac. "To the late Harry Potter, who saved us all. Merlin forgive me if I ever spoke ill of him."

The other wizards and witches solemnly repeated his toast, with the exception of Lucius, who mumbled something through clenched teeth that sounded more like "good riddance". He keenly felt the injustice of being forced to sacrifice his expensive premium brandy to the memory of the ridiculous heroics of the boy who no longer lived.

While Fudge spent several minutes sermonizing about Potter and Professor Dumbledore's commendable involvement Lucius' pale eyes traveled around the table. Twelve wizards and witches listened closely to the former Minister of Magic, twelve wizards and witches whom he had carefully hand-picked over the last few months to form the core of the resistance, to conspire against the new Minister of Magic and his ridiculous and dangerous policies.

He had started with his trusted family advocatus Marcellus Tethering, who sat quietly at the opposite end of the table, dressed in his customary non-descript grey robes and who had barely uttered a word the entire evening, concentrating instead on eating as much of every dish as was humanly possible. He now leaned back in his chair listening with his eyes half-closed.

Next to him squatted former Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge, her shapeless pasty body squashed into a lacy, pink confection of a gown several sizes too small for her. Lucius' lips curled in a barely suppressed display of distaste. He was not entirely convinced of Ms. Umbridge's usefulness. Ever since her brief stint as High Inquisitor at Hogwarts several years ago she had a nervous tic in her left eye and seemed terribly jittery, but she still followed Fudge faithfully.

Next to her an older, harried-looking wizard, a skinny, dark-haired witch and a jowly middle-aged sorcerer scowled openly at the ex-minister's speech in praise of Harry Potter. Daimon Spofford, Hel Meredith and Victor Bludgeon were the only remaining English Death Eaters who had evaded capture during Lord Voldemort's re-emergence, their identities never revealed. If the other guests knew their secret, they would most likely recoil in terror and outrage. All three of them held moderately influential posts at the Ministry.

The rest of the guests comprised a few old associates of Fudge's from his former glory days, two Unspeakables who were dissatisfied with current Ministry policies and a shifty-looking wizard named Mundungus Fletcher.

Lucius still had his doubts about him as he had been a former member of the Order of the Phoenix, but he had assured them that the Order and the new elite in power had begun to seriously disturb his numerous and profitable business venues, and admittedly the man was very well connected. Lucius had slipped him some Veritaserum a few weeks ago and not heard anything to the contrary. Under reasonable supervision Mundungus might prove valuable after all.

Finally the former minister moved on to the next topic of his carefully prepared speech, a topic that was considerably dearer to Lucius' heart than the headmaster of Hogwarts and his late protégé. He took a sip of his coffee and listened more closely.

"It is perhaps a rule of human nature that as the pendulum of events swings far into one direction, it will swing as far back into the opposite, and we must have now reached a reaction to You-Know-Who's belief in the benefits of the purity of wizarding blood that is as one-sided, perilous and extreme as his used to be.

It is to be regretted that public opinion was so swayed in favor of the members of the Order of the Phoenix during the last election that instead of trusting in me to guide our society during a third term of office and gently healing the wounds of our world, they chose to vote instead for Arthur Weasley, a man who had up to then held a rather insignificant and unimportant job at the Ministry of Magic. Mr. Weasley has had no previous experience in politics, but possesses an unhealthy and extreme fondness for muggles that I find as pernicious and fanatical as You-Know-Who's hatred of them."

Fudge sighed and wiped a slightly stained-looking handkerchief over his brow. A rustle went round the table as several of the guests cast surreptitious cooling spells.

"I will hardly have to remind you of the latest discriminations and restrictions his absurd fascination has imposed on us all: the new Protection Order 21 that tells us that jinxes cannot be performed within a 100 yard radius of any muggle, even when they are not directed at them. Then there are the new equality laws that specify preferential hiring of muggle-borns and half-bloods over pure-bloods to increase what he and his brainless followers call 'diversity' at the Ministry and in other professions.

I am telling you, being pure-blood these days is nothing less than a stigma and a burden. Everyone will automatically suspect that you had sympathies for You-Know-Who. Our careers and businesses have suffered, our children face discrimination."

Several guests nodded vigorously and even Lucius felt his lips compress in anger as he admitted the truth in Fudge's speech. He had lost several important customers to mudblood-run businesses over the last few months, and Draco, who had begun his apprenticeship in the Malfoy family trade, was constantly facing unfair prejudices and problems.

"But that is not all: now the Weasley faction is looking to forming ever closer ties with the world of muggles. There is idle chatter of exchange programs, of establishing contact with them, of mutual cooperation even."

The former minister's fist hit the table hard enough to make the coffee cups jump and clatter on their saucers.

"After all the centuries of persecution, of prejudices and fanaticism we have faced at the hands of stupid, uninformed muggles who lash out at us in terror of our abilities, he wants cooperation, wants to give up our carefully maintained code of secrecy. I am telling you: he has gone too far! He must be stopped! Stopped now, before it is too late, before our world will be overrun and destroyed by muggles!

Mr. Malfoy and I have called you together here tonight, because you are the only ones we can trust, the only staunch defenders of our way of life, the only witches and wizards who still know what the virtues of circumspection and moderation mean. You have to stand up to be counted, to be the saviors of our kind."

Lucius felt a surge of energy and excitement sweep around the room. Half drunk, impoverished and stripped of his former power Cornelius Fudge still retained his magic on occasions like this: the rhetoric and personal charisma that had made him Minister of Magic for two terms running, and most likely the most effective pawn in the entire set of political game-pieces that the elder Malfoy had ever had at his disposal.

Everyone's eyes were now glued to the speaker, and the older wizard took a deep breath before he continued.

"The last piece of demented devilry they have thought up is the establishment of a Department for Muggle Liaisons. And here is where we will take control back from them! When they least expect it!"

Lucius felt Eleanor shift in surprise at his side and looked up himself, while he captured her hand in his. He found Fudge's slightly unsteady eyes coming to rest on him.

"We will need to make an effort to place our own champion in charge of this new Department. We must rally behind one of the few pureblood wizards who still commands respect, deference and authority. We must support Lucius Malfoy for chief of Muggle Liaisons!"

Lucius blinked, mildly panicked now, and tried not to swallow too noisily. His pawn had just made a rather independent and unexpected move…


	3. The Best laid Plans

**The Best-laid Plans…**

_"Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans." (John Lennon)_

When the excited chatter around the dinner table had died down Fudge made a deep bow at his host.

"I trust you will accept? I know how distasteful this position would be to you, but I know you have never shirked from your duty when it comes to supporting and protecting our way of life. As former Minister of Magic I am calling upon you as a concerned citizen."

"I would not dream of abandoning my civic responsibilities," declared Lucius Malfoy stiffly, still feeling slightly dazed and overtaken by the latest turn of events and watched Fudge sit back down.

"Then we must debate on how we can position our candidate and plan to get him instated," declared the ministry wizard.

His energy levels seemed to have risen quite dramatically since the inception of his speech. He excitedly rubbed his hands and leaned in to the master of the manor.

"Conspiracy never felt so good, don't you think?" he declared in a stage whisper and took a rather large swig of the cognac to refresh himself.

Lucius gave him a pained smile. He had just blown several hundred galleons – on what? – on being thrown to the wolves, well to the muggles in any case. He saw Eleanor's slim hand come to rest on the sleeve of his coat and gently squeeze his arm. He looked over to her and read sympathetic concern in her deep green eyes.

"Hem, hem!"

A mock cough broke his line of thought and as he surveyed the table he saw that dumpy Umbridge woman heft a rather voluminous handbag embroidered with fat magenta roses and pull a gaudily colored magazine from its depths which she flipped open and pushed towards Fudge.

"We may have to do some damage control before we can get onto the campaign trail," she declared in a girly, high-pitched voice. "I don't know if any of you have seen this yet."

Two of the Death Eaters and Mundungus Fletcher nodded gloomily. Tethering looked as if he knew, but didn't want to admit it.

Lucius heard his wife gasp softly as he leaned over the table and reached for what appeared to be the latest edition of _Witch Weekly_. "I Married a Death Eater" he read and felt a pulse pound painfully in his temples as he saw Narcissa's name and continued to take in the rest of the short article. When he reached the excerpt he found himself too furious to continue.

He shoved the magazine over to the ex minister, almost sweeping the man's coffee cup off the table.

"Codswallop! Lies and simpering claptrap! Yes, I do distinctly remember her crashing one of our little parties. And I recall Avery handing her a heated poker during the proceedings. Hell, she used it to go to town on that one muggle who insulted her, I actually admired the bitch for her nerves.

'Too distraught to count…' what, from four to five? Pathetic! And what did she think? That I would harm my only son and heir if she objected or raised an alarm? Ridiculous! I might have put her under the _imperius_ to help her keep her mouth shut, is all!

Anyway, in reality she never stopped whining about the noise and the messy leftovers. It's not like she didn't have an opinion on the matter. But it was because of the inconvenience for her and her fear of detection, not because of any stupid attachment to muggles."

He slammed the flat of his hand on the table making his guests flinch.

"She will pay for this! I should have opted to become a widower instead of getting divorced a long time ago. By Azrael, she'll be sorry she ever dipped a quill in ink.'

Through the red haze of his fury he saw that the other wizards and witches had pushed back their chairs and listened aghast to the outbreak of their host. Tethering had buried his face in his hands, Eleanor was shaking her head and noiselessly moved her lips, and Fudge appeared rather nauseous.

"What!" he snarled at them. "I am… – was… – a Death Eater. You have known that ever since the trial three years ago. I never denied it, did I? No point pretending you're having a bad case of indigestion now. What do you expect from me: a sermon? Some wheedling apologies? Conspiracy never felt so good, eh? Well, take a good look at what strange bed-fellows we make and get over yourselves."

He sat back and took a deep breath, willing his voice to sound calm.

"We are forced together now by one single common interest, to fight the recent revolting and obscene pro-muggle laws, which is all that unites us."

He gave a brief derisive laugh. "What are we? The last sad remnants of the former Death Eaters, the once all-powerful scourge of muggles and mudbloods, an ex-minister, an ex-member of the Order of the Phoenix and a few sidelined Ministry officials whose careers have hit dead ends since that idiot Weasly has been in command. Come off it: if Arthur's supporters saw us here tonight they'd be peeing their pants with laughter not with fear."

Umbridge coughed again.

"Remnants of the former Death Eaters?" she asked anxiously. "W-what – who else here is a remnant!"

"Never mind that now," interrupted her Tethering's calm voice from the other side of the table. "Mr. Malfoy was referring to himself. We all know he was once a Death Eater. But since then he's had his own son tortured and abducted by the Dark Lord and his family's lives were threatened by his former associates. No one here is in sympathy with You-Know-Who's philosophy and murderous ideals. We just want to prevent this current ridiculous favoritism of muggles. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Malfoy?"

The blond wizard briefly closed his eyes and tried to plant a beatific smile on his face.

"Yes, of course, Marcellus. Thanks for pointing out the relevant facts here. I am afraid the article took me by surprise. I would have never thought Narcissa would stoop so low as to resort to blatant lies about me merely for the sake of petty revenge."

Not everyone looked entirely convinced. The Death Eaters were glowering at Fudge and the Unspeakables. Mundungus smirked at their host – his stint in the Order of the Phoenix obviously made him doubt Lucius' declaration – and Dolores Umbridge stared nervously at everyone like a fat toad cornered by several hungry grass snakes.

"W-well," stammered Fudge finally, rather rattled by the most recent exchange, "I guess we just have to acknowledge and move past our differences for the sake of the common good. I still think that Mr. Malfoy is the best man for the job."

"Yes," grinned Mundungus, who somehow seemed to find the situation rather funny: "Absolutely! As long as he doesn't go cursing his muggle liaison counterparts to kingdom come…"

Lucius shot the ex Order member a murderous glance, but had to admit that the small-time fraud had hit the problem spot-on. If they were "successful" he would have to deal with the scum of the earth on a daily basis, and regrettably the Unforgivables would not be part of the official protocol.

* * *

"I really need some fresh air…" said Lucius Malfoy turning to his wife when the last of their dinner guests had finally disapparated from the dim echoing entrance hall with a soft pop. 

The three Death Eaters had tried to stay for a little while longer, lamenting their woes and fishing for sympathy and support from their former second-in-command, but the blond wizard had had little patience for them. They had been pretty lukewarm and ineffective when they had counted among Voldemort's fighters, hence the fact they had remained undetected; they were even less useful to him now.

Eleanor turned to face him, laid one arm around his back and leant in on him. Her other hand gently trailed the frown lines that formed sharp shaded verticals above his arched nose.

"Come then," she said. "It's still warm outside. Let's go into the garden for a bit."

He pulled her even closer with a soft growl and kissed her before turning them both towards the long hallway that led to the back of the manor.

"Thanks for making sure we were at least going down in style," he said.

She laughed softly. "More like shot down in flames, my dear… That fireworks display of the Crêpes Suzette dessert turned out to be rather prophetic, didn't it?"

He sighed as he let go of her to open one of the tall patio doors for them. They stepped out into the deep warm indigo of a clear summer night and as he took her arm again their steps crunched softly over the white marble gravel as they moved among the flower beds and towards the small boxwood maze in the center of the garden.

"I still can't believe I let Fudge talk me into taking this moronic position," he complained. "That damn old tactician sprang a complete trap on me. And then Narcissa's piece… the nerve of that bitch! But I should not have been surprised: I heard the junior editor of _Pentacle Publishing_ in Hogsmeade is her latest beau. He probably hatched that plot with her. It really didn't help us, though. Merlin, you could cut the mutual distrust back there with a knife. How will we ever get these guys to work together?"

His voice became calmer and trailed off as the darkness and silence of the night surrounded them and the few lights of the manor dimmed behind them. He looked sideways and saw that Eleanor had entrusted her steps to his guidance and had tilted her head back to gaze up at the starry summer sky and the soft powder dusting of the milky-way that snaked its way through the bright stars of the summer triangle and past the red fire of Arcturus. He could feel the warmth of her body through her thin dress where she leaned against his hip and his arm.

"Look," she said dreamily, pointing towards the horizon. "Scorpio, your birth-sign, just there in the southern sky. And do you see them, the brightest fires in your constellation: Antares, rival of Ares, god of war, the heart of the Scorpion, red as Mars? And Acrab – Al Akrab – the Arabic word for war and strife? Lucius, intensity and passion are your middle names. Did you ever think you would thrive on peace and quiet? The boredom would simply kill you."

She stopped and turned towards him.

"Admit it, my dear, you are so getting off on this."

In the dim star-light he saw her lips curve in a smile. A sudden, cooler breeze caught in the light spider silk of her dress and caused her robes to swirl and dance around her. Her hair lifted off her shoulders and streamed behind her, revealing the pale glow of the bare skin of her shoulders.

"Perhaps," he admitted, aware of a sudden change in the atmosphere that had little to do with the evening's conflicts and aggravations. "Among other things… But surely you must know it takes more than a few muggles and a good row to bring out the worst in me."

* * *

Eleanor felt as if a sudden electrical current crawled over her skin. A dark vortex of wind seemed to envelop her and she bit her lips as she regarded the man who stood before her. In his grey robes he seemed little more than a dim outline framed by the even deeper shadows of the old trees of the park. Only his white blond hair gleamed in the night, and starlight reflected coolly in his pale eyes. 

His hands lay lightly on her flanks now, his palms increasingly warm against her chilling skin, his thumbs tracing the hard ridges of her hip bones, slowly, hypnotically. Perhaps it was the dramatic nocturnal setting, perhaps some strange foreboding – though she'd never been successful at divination – but for a moment she paused and the intensity of her gaze stopped his caresses.

"How can anyone be another's destiny like that?" she whispered to him. "How can something feel so much like fate?"

He lightly shook his head, tracing her face with the tips of his fingers.

"There is no destiny. There is no fate, my love. There is only your will. You are here because you want to be. Nothing compels you but your own desire."

She still felt an odd shiver shake her, but her lips curved in a smile.

"That is an opinion born from quite some arrogance, wouldn't you say?"

His eyes narrowed for a moment.

"Prove me wrong. Walk away if you can," he challenged her, and for a moment he sounded deadly serious, as if he were truly testing her.

She lowered her head.

"You know only to well that I can't, Lucius."

"Can't or won't? That is the real difference, isn't it? You could, if you truly willed yourself to go. It's just that you don't want to. And here is why…"

He paused, giving her an appraising look before he trailed a lazy hand down the front of her robes calculating on the thin spider silk to hide nothing from his exploring fingers. He heard her gasp softly and then saw her eyes widen in her suddenly illuminated face.

Lightning flickered somewhere on the horizon, and as if to mirror his own deepening arousal the dark night wind again swept out of nowhere and shook the rustling branches of the old trees of the park.

"Lucius…"

"Come," he coaxed her, repeating his caress and feeling the pebbled hardness of her nipples through the revealing fabric. "The maze…"

"Outside?" she whispered, catching on. "Here? What if…"

He shook his head at her impatiently.

"What? The servants are sleeping! You're not expecting anyone will see us out here, are you? As you well know there are spells…"

"Oh, forget the servants… there's a thunderstorm coming, Lucius. In case you hadn't noticed. We'll most likely get soaked and hit by lightning!"

"Hmm," he purred seductively. "Sopping wet, and toying with mortal danger, eh? You just know how to talk a man into anything, don't you?"

She laughed quietly but realized he was really serious as he let go of her and raised his outstretched arms towards the sky.

"_Fulmine cave_!" he intoned slowly pushing his palms back towards the ground, and she gasped as his protective invocation was seemingly answered by a huge forked flash that hit the grounds behind the park. Blue fire danced around his body for a moment.

The storm moved towards them swiftly now. She saw murky mottled clouds obscure the western stars, and moments later as he touched her again and drew her to him the first fat, cold spatters of rain hit her, settling her shivering into his embrace. She groaned as he kissed her, his tongue capturing and caressing hers, and did not think about dissuading him any longer.

His long, slender fingers worked to loosen the buttons and fastenings of her dress, and as his hands encountered her bare skin, she answered his caresses with a deep moan and began to undo his robes.

He lifted her dress away from her before she had a chance to divest him of all his clothes, but the impatience with which he shrugged off the last of the barriers that stood between them showed her the urgency of his need.

And then they faced each other across the darkness of the night, no more than mere yards from the place of their handfasting. She felt the heat radiating from his skin as she pushed against him. The powerful gusts of the storm tousled their hair, making her blink as strands of his blond mane whipped across her face. They sought each other's mouths blindly.

His body seemed the only solid thing in the mad onrush of air as he slowly pulled her down with him to the ground. The grass beneath her knees felt short and dense and soft as velvet and she allowed herself to sink back into it. His strong hands that had supported her shoulders as she lay back moved across her stomach now, closely trailed by his exploring lips.

Another brilliant flash of lightning was followed almost instantaneously by deafening thunder and she jumped against him in an immediate physical reaction while his body pinned her beneath him and his knees nudged her thighs apart. The light showed him propped up above her on his right forearm, while his left rain-slicked hand snaked down her flank and gently and insistently stroked and rubbed against her center, her flesh heating his chill fingers.

She moaned and spread herself further, finding it hard to breathe through the dense rain that now beat down on her. She was almost thankful as he finally relented and guided himself into her. Now his body was centered above her and shielded her from some of the downpour. His movements within her felt urgent, and the lightning that illuminated his face showed his full curved lips drawn back from his teeth, his grey eyes boring into her, trying to read her reaction.

Cold thick droplets hit her everywhere and chilled her, save where the heat of his body was covering her. She heard the torrent of water that surrounded her, the angry growl of the thunder, felt the solid presence of the earth beneath her. Lighting penetrated her closed lids in the color of blood. The scent of wet, bruised grass hit her nostrils, but among all that assault on her senses, more than anything she felt him, filling her, stretching her with every thrust. They were both naked before the elements, and she knew within herself that the intensity of what she experienced easily rivaled the fury of the storm.

Just as she had begun to surrender to the trance of his steady rhythm inside her building towards her own climax she suddenly felt his movements still and his muscles grow taut. He paused, and then, with a last thrust that locked him firmly within her he flipped them, heavily and painfully rolling over her left thigh for a moment, his hands firmly grasping her upper arms. She shook dripping curls backwards out of her eyes as she suddenly found herself riding him, his pale, muscular body stretched out on the ground beneath her.

"Come," he coaxed her. "I want to see you – all of you! Eleanor, this is you, the thunder, the lightning, make it yours…"

She collected herself for a moment, taking in her surroundings in the dim darkness, the dripping pile of clothes off to their side, his rain-slicked blond hair that now fanned out on the ground beneath his head and shoulders. Rain beat down on her back and she tilted back her head for a moment letting the cool drops hit her heated upturned face and closed eye-lids. Then she lifted up on her knees that pressed into the soft squelching grass, half released him and impaled herself on him again.

A flash of lighting revealed him to her again in flaming brilliance, eyes half-closed against the rain in almost cat-like self-indulgence, his nostrils flaring, passion transforming his features. She took a deep breath to steady herself. His complete and unreserved abandonment to his senses still amazed her. As much as he prized control in every aspect of his life, with her, in moments like this, his willingness and capability to let himself go, to abandon himself, startled and thrilled her.

She raised her arms off his body towards the sky in a mute invocation of the powers of nature that surrounded them, her upturned palms capturing the rain, willing now to harness the spark of lightning itself. And when she tightened the long muscles of her thighs to support her in her ride towards their mutual climax, she felt an energy behind her that was fueled with power beyond her own.

His grey eyes opened, blinking against the rain as he watched her now and she reveled in the power she was tapping into. A strange synchronicity seemed to govern their coupling as the fury of the storm increased in keeping with their rising passion and as she finally bent back screaming unashamedly into the lashing rain at her release and felt him arch up beneath her a last mighty flash and thunder rent the air around her.

When she crouched back over him, now panting and shivering with cold and exhaustion, the storm also seemed to have spent itself and slowly moved off towards the east. The rain thinned and muted thunder grumbled off into the distance.

She felt his arms enclose her, his fingers lazily trailing along her back but the discomfort of cold and wetness kept them from giving in to rest. She heard his voice next to her ear as he turned his face towards her.

"You're trembling," he said softly.

"Freezing," she complained, teeth chattering. "_F-f-fervefacio_!"

"Let's get you warm then," he promised her with a suggestive chuckle.

"Only if it involves some hot water, full body contact and warm blankets…" she demanded, lifting her hips off him and dismounting. "Look at us," she said, kneeling to his side, shaking her head, and grinning despite herself. "Like something the cat dragged in. You have grass clippings all over you."

With perfect grace he managed to lift himself and get back on his feet tossing back his wet hair with his usual impatient arrogance. But his hands that reached down to help her up felt gentle.

"Look who's talking," he replied with an appraising smile, but still she caught him flick his fingers at pieces of earth and leaves that had stuck to his water-slicked skin.

She bent down and retrieved their soggy robes, handing him the formless bunch of his shirt, pants, waistcoat and coat. He merely tucked them under his left arm, wrapped his right around her and led their way back to the house, while she at least tried to arrange the remnants of her dress around her in a failed attempt at some modesty.

In the deep shadows of the back porch Lucius halted. A few spells dried their clothes and their bodies and the wizard added a cleaning spell for good measure. As she felt the dry fabric of her gown in her hands she lifted her brows in surprise. That was a rare show of meticulousness from someone who would normally have left a mess like this for the house elves to clean. He seemed to have sensed her reaction, because as he stood next to her in the dark, getting dressed she heard him explain.

"I want to look in on Lavinia before we go to bed. I know she's sleeping, but I want to see her at least once today." He shrugged on his coat. "No point giving old Maleficia a heart attack if she's still up."

She pulled the dress back on and followed her husband into the house, up the main stairs and down the long hallway that led to the nursery. Lucius moved quietly like a shadow, is wand tip barely illuminated to show them the way, and as he laid his hand on the door handle to Lavinia's bedroom he briefly turned to his wife.

"Let's not wake her," he said and noiselessly opened the door.

A moment later they both bent over the small ebony bed in which the youngest Malfoy lay soundly asleep on her side. Lucius carefully increased the glow of his wand and they saw her peaceful face on the deep emerald green pillows. He cheeks appeared puffy and pink with sleep, her small hands curled into fists and she had pursed her lips as a response to a dream perhaps. White-gold hair surrounded her head like a tousled halo.

A colorful swirly crayon drawing lay slightly crumpled on top of her coverlet, with big scrawled letters declaring "TO DADDY". Obviously either Maleficia or Libby had helped a bit at some point.

The wizard stretched out his hand and Eleanor watched him gently lift a stray curl from his daughter's face and lightly tug the sheets that covered her small body in place. Little Lavinia didn't even stir. He picked up the drawing and looked up, the witch meeting his bright grey eyes.

"Isn't she beautiful?" he whispered. "Isn't she perfect?"

Eleanor smiled. "Of course she is," she answered. "How could she not be?"

As a response her husband lightly kissed her forehead.

"Come," he said, gently folding Lavinia's picture and tucking it into his robes. "Let's go to bed."

They turned and left, and neither of them saw the small crack of the door at the far end of the nursery softly close where from the darkness beyond the nanny had observed their visit. Maleficia Babbitt smoothed down her nightshirt, her brows knit in a frown as she slowly made her way back to her bed.


	4. Just Another Day at the Office

**Just Another Day at the Office…**

_"Il est plus facile de paraitre digne des emplois qu'on n'a pas que de ceux que l'on exerce.__ – It is easier to appear worthy of a position one does not hold, than of the office which one fills." (François Duc de la Rochefoucauld) _

Lucius Malfoy sighed and lowered his copy of the _Daily Prophet_ to look out of the large enchanted window of his office at the Ministry where maintenance had arranged for the illusion of a disgustingly cheerful summer day. Little puffs of cotton-wool clouds sailed across a deep azure sky and one could even hear the fake chirping of birds outside. He shook his head. Someone felt way too happy for their own good today.

He took a sip of tea from a thin, delicate porcelain cup and rapped on his desk. Immediately a worried-looking witch with spiny salt and pepper hair poked her head around the door.

"Yes, sir?" she asked nervously.

"Close the window, will you," he said curtly, lifting up his newspaper again. After all, his new secretary really was nothing to look at. "Bloody birdsong is driving me crazy. Send a memo about it to Wilkins in maintenance to stop this nonsense."

"Certainly, sir." She scurried across the office and wrestled with the stiff fastenings. The racket diminished, but didn't cease. "Anything else, sir?"

Lucius stopped reading a completely moronic article about a quarrel between a Ministry subcommittee and two local wizarding families over a planning permission for a new quidditch stadium near Manchester, glanced up at the witch and blinked in shock. No one could be punished for ugliness, but anyone daring to pair mustard yellow and violet checkered robes with a lavender hat embroidered with red tulips ought to be forced at wandpoint to eat the entire ensemble.

"You have been my secretary for how long now?" he asked coolly.

"Two weeks and three days," she answered deadpan.

Obviously he wasn't the only one here counting the days.

"Have you considered at any point during this time to actually wear something that doesn't induce migraine headaches and projectile vomiting in anyone who is unfortunate enough to accidentally look at you?"

The woman stared mutely at him for a moment, and he saw crimson rising in her cheeks. He leaned back with a smirk watching her, certain that she was probably too embarrassed and flustered to reply. When she suddenly leaned forward over his desk he actually flinched for a moment in surprise.

"That's it! That just does it!" she yelled. "I've put up with your miserable pompous arrogance and your bullying and stupid pureblood nastiness day after day, merely because I was going to try and do Arthur Weasley a favor and keep an eye on you, but I've had enough! Do you know the secretary pool was going to draw lots over who would be assigned to you? If you got the short straw you got landed with Mr. Goddess'-Gift-to-Wizardkind-bloody-Malfoy. Well, let them draw straws! I resign! I'd rather join maintenance and clean the lavatories around here."

She stomped back over to the window and yanked the latch open.

"There! Get rid of the birds yourself! I'm not your fucking house-elf!"

He heard the slam of a door as she left the office and slowly exhaled. That certainly had been a rather spirited and unexpected surprise.

"Lavatories, eh?" he muttered softly under his breath. "Well, I should still have enough clout around here to have that arranged for you, my dear."

He got up, walked around the desk and shut the window again with more force than was strictly necessary. Still two hours to kill until his meeting with that damn muggle. He shook his head.

* * *

Fudge's harebrained plot to get him the job as muggle liaison had actually worked. The old Weasel had been furious at the appointment, but the process that had got him instated had been seemingly flawless and beyond reproach and the mudblood faction could raise no objections to have the decision overturned. 

So two weeks and three days ago he had moved into his new office on level three of the Ministry building where the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes had been recently enlarged to include an Office for Muggle Cooperation. He had been assigned his eyesore of a secretary and been made to work under the general supervision of young Percy Weasly, which was an insult in and of itself.

The only redeeming element of the situation consisted in the fact that Weasly father and son were not exactly on speaking terms and Lucius enjoyed himself somewhat in playing one man against the other. Still it was meager compensation for his new duties. He wasn't sure what he hated more: the fact that he now had to work under Ministry orders and supervision, his regular meetings with his colleagues, all of them fervent muggle-lovers and many of them mere mudbloods to boot, his weekly courtesy visits with his actual muggle counterpart and assorted other officials in Downing Street or the man himself that had been paired up with him from the other side.

Lucius found himself pacing back and forth in front of his desk with nervous energy as he thought of the middle-aged skinny muggle he was seeing on a regular basis now.

"Alfred Sedgewick," he muttered angrily. "_Professor_ Alfred Sedgewick…"

The man called himself a professor of parapsychology. Lucius still remembered the introductions. Arthur Weasley had been present, as had been the muggle Prime Minister. Everybody had been ridiculously polite and deferential. He had suppressed the strong urge to walk out of the room and thoroughly wash his hands after the initial greetings, he also refrained from hexing the muggle servant who had put milk in his tea by mistake, nor had he asked what in the name of the Triple Goddess muggles meant by parapsychology. He had merely kept silent and aloof trying to stay as far away from his hosts as humanly possible.

He had asked that question a few hours later, over dinner, at home. Eleanor had raised an eyebrow.

"Hm, interesting choice… They have picked someone who studies phenomena that muggles don't quite understand, such as legilimency which they call telepathy, divination that actually produces results, skrying, and just general magical occurrences. At least they have picked someone they consider a specialist. You know, your muggle contact may actually look at you as a rather fascinating specimen."

He had not been amused by the explanation.

"Specimen! What am I, some kind of bug or other monstrosity?"

Unfortunately his wife's assessment had proved rather accurate. He still remembered his first one-on-one meeting with the professor. They had talked about telepathy.

"Legilimency," Lucius explained, pronouncing the word very slowly, so the stupid idiot would get it. "Latin _legere_ – to read, and Latin _mens_ – mind. No one calls it telepathy around here."

The muggle seemed as ridiculously fascinated with the concept as Arthur Weasly was with muggles and their habits. He sat forward on his chair and stared at him.

"So?" he asked excitedly.

Lucius leaned back with a sneer.

"So what?"

"Well, can you do it? This legilimency?"

The wizard shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course I can, almost everyone can, unless you are a useless squib."

"What's a squib?"

He sighed. This would be a long and tedious conversation.

"A squib is someone born to wizarding parents, but who somehow has failed to inherit their magical abilities. It happens relatively rarely, fortunately, and is a rather embarrassing situation for everyone. Often squibs will elect to live among muggles. In the old families squibs are normally abandoned as soon as they fail to exhibit any magical abilities."

The muggle pushed back a pair of thick spectacles on his thin, long nose and stared at him in appalled horror.

"Abandoning their own children? But that's outrageous!"

"Better than watering down your bloodline," the wizard replied with a growl. "In any case, I believe we were talking about legilimency."

"Yes, yes," the man agreed, casting one last dubious glance at his host. "Well can you legilimens me, for example? What am I thinking right now?"

The wizard shook his head.

"It's 'to perform legilimency'," he drawled condescendingly. "'Legilimens' isn't a verb."

He captured the muggle's eyes and concentrated for a minute. The guy's mind was wide open and rather a jumble – no discipline, which was to be expected from someone like him. He took a few moments to look around then frowned and tilted his head.

"Well!"

The muggle was practically falling out of his chair with excitement now.

"And does your wife like it?" Lucius asked with some mild interest.

"Like what?" asked the man, obviously puzzled.

The wizard suddenly realized he would actually enjoy their conversation after all.

"Hm, you tried very hard just now not to think of the fact that you gave it to her in the ass earlier this morning before you left the house. Of course unless you know occlumency that sort of thing never works. You only leave the thoughts more noticeable. So I was merely curious. Does she like it?"

He watched the muggle's face assume a rather interesting shade of beet-red as the man tried not to choke during a sudden and violent coughing-fit. There was hardly the need to be delicate and polite with this kind of vermin, and obviously he had made his point.

Lucius never found out if Mrs. Sedgewick appreciated her husband's attentions, not that he had been really interested in the first place, but the professor did not voice any doubt as to his capacities as a legilimens and had become quite a bit more distanced, reserved and jumpy around him after that, all very positive developments.

Of course the whole liaison job had on the whole proved to be more trouble than it was worth. Lucius remembered one tedious session at the muggle university where Professor Sedgewick did his research. He had repeatedly performed the _accio_ spell while hooked up to a strange electrical device called an EEG that spat out rolls of paper covered with unintelligible squiggles.

He had demurred at first when the professor had made his request, but Old Weasley had intervened and threatened him with suspension from his post if he didn't comply. They had put rubber bands around his head, and stuck tiny metal sticks with cables onto him, nothing painful, but decidedly uncomfortable and extremely undignified, especially when they had eventually unhooked him and the rubber bands had got snarled in his hair.

He had lost patience and finally vanished the whole lot causing an attending muggle nurse who wasn't in the know to faint and the professor to grow rather anguished at the prospect of finding "grant money" to get the cabling replaced. He had given the man two shiny new gold galleons which had shut him up in the end. Obviously this parapsychology thing did not pay well.

In return he had so far managed to stop an agreement to put in place a medical exchange program between St. Mungo's and Great Ormond Street Hospital and a by-law that would allow select muggles to attend quidditch games. Small victories, of course, but he shuddered to think what kind of damage a pro-muggle wizard or witch in his position could have already done.

Today they would be discussing a scheme to organize an exchange between Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and a muggle school for gifted children in Essex, which Lucius took to mean extraordinarily smart muggles with some borderline mudbloods thrown in for good measure. He pictured a whole horde of smart-aleck children with buck-teeth and bushy hair like that obnoxious Granger girl that had been in Draco's year at school and shuddered. Of course he would do everything in his power to dissuade his contact to go forward with the plan. He'd rather die than see his old school subjected to this outrage.

He already knew how he would manage to turn Sedgewick against the proposal. Feigning concern for the muggle spawn involved should do the trick. All he needed to do was show the professor some of the pranks he and his fellow Slytherins had played on unsuspecting Gryffindor and Hufflepuff first and second years during his time at Hogwarts and the idiot would come right off his crazy notions. Of course the poor muggles would be entirely defenseless before the magic of their fellow students and end up scarred for life by the experience. Such an outcome would not foster understanding and cooperation between the wizarding world and non-magical humans now, would it?

The stupid, gullible muggle just had to agree with him. Lucius paused, picked up his cane that leaned against the wall behind his desk and slowly and lovingly slipped his wand from the hollow wood. Unimaginable to eventually having to send his little Lavinia to a school where she would be forced to attend classes with actual muggles! It was bad enough that Hogwarts freely admitted mudbloods. Of course his girl would make Slytherin house, which would at least keep her somewhat protected. His mission of obstruction must not fail her.

For a moment he turned to the wall next to his desk and looked at a colorful crayon drawing that he had fixed there with a spell. It was a bit hard to make out, but Lavinia had crawled up onto his lap and explained it to him at breakfast the morning after he had accepted Fudge's proposal to take the post as muggle liaison.

The green blob in the middle with the huge eyes and yellow hair and little stick arms and legs was herself, and that frightfully scribbly, bristly thing she was perched on was supposed to be the little play broom Draco had brought back for her from a business trip to Prague. She had also drawn what was supposed to be a snitch, but which looked rather convincingly like Hermes, his eagle owl. Lucius had to admit that the picture would not exactly strike an outsider as a masterpiece, but he wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.

He playfully flicked his wand. "_Furunculus__ posterioris_," he incanted, his lips curving in sadistic glee as he imagined the expression on Alfred Sedgewick's face when he told him – quite untruthfully, of course – that there existed no counterspell for the spectacular and exquisitely painful boil that had just erupted somewhere on his nether regions. Yes, the good old _furunculus_ spell would be a suitably impressive demonstration of what might be in store for the muggle exchange students at Hogwarts. Lavinia's future school would be safe, and the day might not be a complete waste after all.

Now before all else he had to get in touch with that damn Percy Weasly and arrange for another secretary to be assigned to him – hopefully someone marginally better looking than that previous one. Then there were a few people to be invited to lunch over the next several days to arrange for his ex-secretary's next employment as a cleaning-woman. He would enjoy running across her in one of the lavatories one of these days and see the expression on her face.

"Be always careful what you wish for," he murmured, replaced his wand back in his cane, cast one last look at his daughter's drawing and strode out of the office.


	5. Severus Snape Makes a Visit

**Severus Snape Makes a Visit**

_"A guest sees more in an hour than the host in a year." (Polish proverb)_

The soft crack of an apparition on the drive way of Malfoy Manor made a house elf who was busy sweeping the steps in front of the main portal jump up in alarm, but as the small magical creature beheld the dark robes and lanky black hair of a visitor instead of the pale, arrogant features of his master, he quietly exhaled in relief and merely bowed down deep in greeting. The wizard flung back his robes and ascended the steps without even acknowledging the elf with a single glance.

Summer was the season Severus Snape detested above all else. It was hot and miserable, one constantly had to use cooling spells, and the bright light was just designed to give one splitting headaches. It didn't help that some of his worst memories connected with his old school days had mostly happened in summer. This year the Hogwarts potions master had spent a large part of the summer vacation holed up with old Daniel Stolcius, the Durmstrang alchemist, in Iceland doing research. At least the temperatures up there were bearable.

He had planned on a brief return to England on the 25th of July, but an experiment had gone rather horribly wrong, and he had been confined to the wizarding hospital in Reykjavik for about two weeks. Finally the rose bouquets that kept erupting from his ears and nostrils at inopportune moments had stopped sprouting and now he had to catch up on one duty he had neglected so far.

He looked around the cool, dim entrance hall of Malfoy Manor and spotted another house elf.

"Tell your mistress I'm here to see her," he said curtly and took a deep breath, happy at having escaped the hot, relentless sunlight.

The elf bowed and vanished, and a few minutes later he heard the light clatter of steps on the curved central staircase. As he looked up he saw Eleanor Malfoy-Sartorius. She was dressed in some light but rather formal looking grey-green robes and waved at him as she spotted him. He cleared his throat.

"Severus! What a nice surprise," she smiled as she reached him. "We were wondering what had happened to you when you didn't show at the party without sending word. Lavinia kept asking about you. I think she was quite disappointed you missed her birthday. You know how like her father she is."

Snape smirked. Self-centered didn't even begin to describe it, but of course in an adorably pretty two-year-old girl that was still quite an endearing quality.

"Well," he said. "I was held up by a rather unfortunate occurrence at your old school. Otherwise I would have visited my godchild, of course. However, I've come to make up for my absence."

He pulled a delicately wrapped gift box from the voluminous right sleeve of his black robes, the pink and gold of the paper and ribbons looking somewhat out of place in the long, spidery fingers of the rather somber-looking wizard.

Eleanor smiled.

"Let's go and wait in the salon," she invited her guest. "Libby? Please go over and tell Maleficia to come see us and get Lavinia ready and bring her with her."

They settled in to wait and Snape turned to his former colleague.

"So how are things around here?" he asked.

The witch looked at him, then shook her head.

"Well, life could be better, Severus. You know Lucius has become chief muggle liaison at the new Office for Muggle Cooperation at the Ministry?"

The potions master, who had just accepted a glass of water from another house elf, almost snorted his first sip all over his robes.

"What!" he choked. "That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a long time. Lucius would never cooperate with muggles, Hecate, he wouldn't even speak to one, unless he was cursing them."

Eleanor sighed.

"That's the general idea. Lucius has accepted the post in order to work on damage control, as he and some of his associated see it. So far he has managed to kill off quite a few proposals and initiatives already. He has also managed to put two of his muggle contacts in the hospital, but they seem besotted with him, regardless. He claims it was all due to unfortunate accidents and misunderstandings, and amazingly, so far they believe him. I had almost forgotten how expert he is at manipulating people. Minister Weasley wants him out, of course, but so far he's done rather well.

You may be happy to hear that only two weeks ago he quashed a plan to start an exchange program between Hogwarts and a muggle school somewhere in Essex. I know you're not too keen on muggles and muggle-borns either. Interestingly enough in the end it was not Lucius but his muggle counterpart who strongly advised against the plan. They had an interview with him in the _Daily Prophet_. The reporter visited him in the muggle hospital where he was undergoing surgery to have a growth removed from a rather embarrassing part of his anatomy. I have a good suspicion how it got there, but as usual nothing can be proved conclusively…"

Snape chortled quietly and carefully replaced his glass of water on a side table.

"Yes, that sounds like Lucius and his old school pranks all right. How about Draco?"

"I don't see too much of him these days. Lucius is giving him some responsibilities with his business ventures which have him traveling a lot to Eastern Europe. He stays with his Lucius' sister Cornelia in Prague quite a bit. I suspect Lucius wants to keep him away from England for a while. He's not happy about Draco's current love-interest. Inappropriate and far too serious in his opinion."

"That would still be Melanie Pucey, I assume?"

Eleanor remembered watching the young people dance together at her and Lucius' handfasting.

"Yes, it is quite a disappointment to his father, who had hoped Draco would follow in his footsteps, sow a rather copious amount of wild oats and break a few hearts in the process. Plus the Puceys have some muggles on their family tree, sometime around the early 1800s… Though these days with the backlash against Voldemort and the pureblood ideology that might actually be something of an asset. At least Lucius isn't planning an arranged marriage for him like his father did when he picked out Narcissa."

Snape nodded somberly.

"And what about yourself? Any plans to resume teaching one of these days? I heard this summer they've had mixed success with their DADA teachers at Durmstrang over the last few years and I think the headmistress would welcome you back."

She considered for a moment.

"Eventually, I should think, but I want to wait until Lavinia is about five or so and will start attending lessons herself. For now I quite like my life as a Defense freelancer."

The Hogwarts professor took another sip of water.

"Freelancer?" he asked.

"Consulting jobs, research, writing, that sort of thing," she said offhand. "Actually I've advised the corps of aurors on several occasions. That rather hushed-up series of quintaped attacks in Dorset a year ago that killed several muggles and three wizards – I consulted with the Ministry over that. It's enough to keep me busy and interested, but not run off my feet…"

Suddenly a small, shrill voice cut her short.

"Uncle Sev!"

A moment later a tiny whirlwind of red robes and white-blond hair shot into the room and launched itself directly at the black-clad wizard, who had barely time to get up when the youngest Malfoy had already attached herself to his trouser-leg with all the persistence of a small barnacle.

"Uff! Let go, Lavinia," he protested, but she didn't pay any attention.

"You don't come to Lala's party," she accused him. "Why not? It was fun! We had pets! I got a big cake! And presents!"

Eleanor had to smile as she watched the potions master bend down and very carefully lift up his godchild who eventually relinquished his leg. He would probably handle an alembic with highly combustible materials in the same way. But eventually she sat perched quite comfortable in the crook of his arm and looked at him with an accusing pout.

"Why not, Uncle Sev? Mummy sent an owl for you!"

The wizard launched into a serious and elaborate explanation for his absence, and as she looked around Eleanor noticed Maleficia enter the room noiselessly behind her charge. The older witch nodded at her and then quietly stood off to the side, watching Lavinia intently. Eleanor found her attention wander. The nanny had seemed strangely preoccupied and subdued over the last few weeks. Maleficia was never particularly talkative, but she had become positively taciturn.

Whatever affected her didn't seem to influence Lavinia, though, who appeared rather boisterous in the warm summer weather, romping around in the garden and park at all times and managing to acquire a rather alarming collection of scrapes and bruises.

Severus voice brought her back.

"And what do we have here?" he asked lifting and examining her left hand. "A bandage? What did you do?"

Eleanor stepped closer. She certainly hadn't noticed a bandage on her daughter when she and Lucius had tucked her in the night before.

The little girl tossed back her head.

"Nothing," she said haughtily. "Lala fall down."

Severus shook his head.

"You must be more careful, Lavinia."

Eleanor stepped up to him and stretched out her fingers.

"Let me see that, sweetie," she asked her daughter and looked at a neatly wrapped strip of white linen that was carefully fastened to protect the palm of her hand.

"She barked her hand just after breakfast on the patio, mistress," a quiet voice announced next to her and as she turned in surprise she noticed that Maleficia had joined them. "It's nothing, but at the moment her impulses are better developed than her motor skills. It happens sometimes. She should catch up to herself in a few weeks. I try to have her walk rather than run, but you know how she can get sometimes."

Severus looked somewhat grim as he took one last look at the bandage and then refocused his attention on the little girl in his arms.

"Well, if you promise me to be more careful in the future and listen to your nanny, I could give you your birthday present. Would you like that, young lady?" he asked.

"Yes!" she nodded emphatically.

The wizard reached over to the side table where he had placed his gift box and handed it to his godchild.

"Have your mommy help you," he suggested. "It's probably a bit difficult to open with that bandage."

Between them they stripped the paper and unwrapped what appeared to be a golden ball that fit neatly into Lavinia's hand.

"Snitch! Snitch!" she cried excitedly, shaking it, but her godfather shook his head.

"No, Lavinia, it's not a snitch. Here, it opens like so, and now, when you blow into it, see what happens…"

The little girl followed the wizard's instructions and a moment later huge soap bubbles filled the air around her, shimmering and glowing in all colors of the rainbow.

"Beautiful! Oh, so pretty," she breathed, trying to catch them.

Eleanor had expected her to be disappointed when they would burst in her hands, but the bubbles remained intact as she moved them about with her fingers. She found herself reaching for them and grinning in delight much like her daughter. Soap bubbles that one could actually play with – just any kid's dream.

She looked over at the wizard whose eyes followed the shimmering spheres that a giggling Lavinia now launched at the ceiling, and she decided it was probably the first time she had ever seen the potions master's saturnine face light up in a genuine smile. He actually looked quite human like that, but she knew better than to comment. He returned her gaze, silent laughter still crinkling the corners of his eyes.

"They'll evaporate after about an hour or so," he reassured her. "I came up with the formula myself, rather by accident, I have to confess. The potion is not poisonous, so you don't have to worry about her drinking some."

In her efforts to grasp the soap bubbles, Lavinia had started to strain and wriggle in Snape's arms and become quite difficult to hold. He gingerly lowered her back onto the floor and ran his narrow pale hand over her white, silky hair.

"There," he said gently. "Run along and play now, and watch your feet."

The little witch barely paid attention to the grown-ups as she immersed herself in her new game of chasing the escaping rainbow spheres floating in the air before her. The potions master handed the golden container with the bubble potion to Maleficia, who walked behind her charge.

Eleanor followed the small, skipping red-clad figure of her daughter with her eyes until nanny and child had left the room, and when she finally turned back to her visitor she noticed that the expression on his face appeared grimmer than usual.

"I don't like to see her hurt," he said sharply.

She sighed.

"Neither do I, but she's outside and all over the place all day, and she's developed quite a temper if anyone wants to slow her down. She's got a number of scrapes and bruises over the last few weeks."

One of Snape's black brows rose sharply.

"Are you sure that's all there is to it? Are you really sure these are all just 'accidents'? Are you sure Mrs. Babbitt isn't covering for someone?"

She stared at him now.

"What do you mean?"

"You haven't read 'I Married a Death Eater', have you? I guess you refrained out of loyalty to him."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I know Lucius. I know all I want to know. Why would I poison my mind with Narcissa's drivel?"

The Hogwarts professor shook his head.

"Yeah, you know what you want to know, but perhaps you should want to know more – for the sake of your child. According to his first wife Lucius beat Draco severely when he was a little boy. How's that for knowledge?"

Eleanor felt an icy chill spread through her at her visitor's words, despite the warm summer air that filled the vaulted room. She knew old Octavian Malfoy had been a horrible father to Lucius, and victims of abuse could easily become abusers themselves later in life.

She clenched her hands into fists, closing her eyes for a moment. She pictured a scene she had witnessed only the evening before. Looking for her husband, she had come across Lucius and Lavinia in his study, a place that was normally off-limits to the two-year old. Father and daughter had both sat on the large, elaborate geomancy rug that covered the center of the wood-paneled room.

She had smiled at seeing Lucius abandon is usually rather formal and meticulous manners and sprawl on the floor, his back resting against one of the heavy oak sides of his desk. Their little daughter was comfortably snuggled up between his long black-clad legs and they were both looking intently at an old grimoire he was holding open for her.

"Daddy, show the dragon eating the wizard again," she demanded and looked up at him out of huge, trusting green eyes.

Her father obligingly pointed his wand at the wood-cut in the book which promptly came to life as a little three-dimensional scene above the old yellowed parchment of the page. A rather grotesque-looking fat dragon snorting tiny puffs of smoke out of his nose craned his neck to survey a small beetle-sized man in long flowing robes. He licked his dangerously fanged jaws, bent down and with one quick movement picked up the unfortunate wizard. A squeaky, panicked exclamation and a long gulp later he settled back down and spouted a few flames as he let off a satisfied burp.

Lavinia shook with laughter.

"Oh that's funny, Daddy. Do it again!"

Lucius had noticed his wife at that point and cocked an eyebrow at her. He laid his arm around his daughter.

"That was sixteen times so far, number seventeen coming up," he said in mock exasperation. She had smiled, settled down with them and watched him perform the same spell for another fifteen times without the slightest trace of real impatience.

She looked up and met Snape's dark eyes with resolve.

"I refuse to believe your implicit accusations. I don't know how Lucius raised Draco. He was younger then, and I did not know him. But I will not have you tell me that he is hurting Lavinia in any way. He'd kill anyone who dared lift a hand against her. He has never so much as shouted at her."

Snape snorted, and when he answered her, his voice sounded bitter.

"Yeah, my mother refused to believe, too. My father used to beat her, but when he beat me she wouldn't see it. I could be black and blue, and she'd tell everyone, including herself I was clumsy and fell down a lot."

The witch stared at him.

"Lucius is not your father," she said. "I know what happened to you. You told Lucius and me when we tried to get Draco back from Voldemort, and I am truly sorry for the terrors you had to endure as a boy. But you can't see everybody else's life in light of your experience, Severus."

He tugged on his dark robes.

"You both made me her godfather because I protected Draco. I shall protect her also. And if I see anyone causing harm to her, including him or yourself by omitting to see what's right in front of your eyes, you'll have to reckon with me. I mean that!"

In the awkwardness that ensued Snape took his leave. Eleanor sat down in a deep chair before the empty fireplace and closed her eyes. In her mind she tried to recall every encounter between Lucius and Lavinia she had ever witnessed from the moment he had held her in the delivery room at St. Mungo's, swaddled in white soft blankets that bore the Malfoy crest, her tiny face still red and furious from the ordeal of her birth. She remembered his long elegant hands cradling her small head as if she was the most precious and fragile thing they had ever touched.

The potions master was wrong, she was sure of it. And yet, why did this tiny nagging voice in the back of her head urge her to go out right now and get a copy of Narcissa's book?


	6. A Book and a Dead Muggle

**A Book and a Dead Muggle**

_"That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit." (Amos Bronson Alcott)_

"Good morning, Alfred," drawled Lucius, leaning back in his chair and regarding his tall, stooping visitor with mild interest. Professor Sedgewick had a small parcel clutched under his arm and seemed somewhat agitated. "How's the wife this morning?"

The wizard smirked as he saw his muggle liaison lose his tenuous composure completely.

"I didn't, we didn't – I mean…" he stammered, and then with some vehemence. "I wish you would stop this telep- legilimency, Lucius. It is quite unnerving, you know?"

The blond man leaned forward across his desk.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. My dear Alfred…" He lingered on the name. It had been Arthur Weasley's idea during a social event a few days earlier to have everybody adopt a first name basis – 'to further cooperation and friendship' as he had put it. "I was merely trying to be polite. I don't know about you muggles, but in the wizarding world it is considered good manners to enquire after someone's spouse and children – if they have any."

The Sedgewicks were childless, and Lucius found some satisfaction in the idea that Alfred's muggle family would probably die out with him.

"Oh, ah – I see," replied the professor. "Errm. Sorry. I assumed – never mind."

"Never mind indeed. Well, sit down."

He clapped, and presently his new secretary bustled into the room. She wasn't much of an improvement over the old one, but younger, somewhat more appealing looking and less inclined to talk back at him. In fact he already had her thoroughly and pleasantly intimidated.

"Tea, coffee, something else entirely, my good man?"

"W-what? Oh, tea will do fine," Mr. Sedgewick looked at the pretty, pale girl in blue robes that glanced nervously at Mr. Malfoy. "Milk and two sugars, please if you'd be so kind."

She beamed at him. "Certainly, sir." Then her smile faded. "For you, sir?"

He raised his brows at her. "The usual," he said curtly, and she briefly ducked her head and vanished.

Malfoy sighed and explained. "She's new, still breaking her in. Give it a few weeks and she may be half-way useful."

This seemed to increase the muggle's agitation, who now remembered the parcel, untucked it from under his arm and carefully laid in on the desk between them. Lucius noted that the wrapping had been opened and closed up again with something that looked like the muggle equivalent of spellotape.

"So, Alfred, lets get to business," the wizard said. "You wanted to see me? About this I presume? What is it?"

The man nervously cleared his throat.

"W-well, maybe you want to see for yourself?" he suggested rather timidly.

Lucius shrugged his shoulders and reached over.

"Nothing that might bite me in there, is it?" he sneered.

"No, no of course not. _I_ would never endanger anyone!"

Lucius noted a certain emphasis in that sentence and ripped the cover from the parcel to find he held an elegantly bound black book in his hands. The glossy dust cover showed a rather tragic and somewhat dyspeptic-looking image of his former wife who now scowled at him furiously. Elegantly scrollworked gold letters above the portrait read 'I Married a Death Eater'.

"Merlin!" the wizard growled and slammed the book back on the desk, front first, so he didn't have to look at Narcissa's picture. "How did you get that!"

A slight trace of crimson now rose in his visitor's cheeks and Lucius was certain that this time it was not from embarrassment.

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" he demanded. "I read this. It was written by your wife."

"Ex-wife!" Lucius declared with some vehemence.

"Ex-wife, then. It is appalling."

The blond wizard nodded. "Yes, isn't it? I have not read it myself, thought to spare myself that ordeal, but I have been told the style is rather over-blown and melodramatic. 'A real tear-jerker, appealing to the reader's lowest instincts,' as one very perceptive critic put it."

Sedgewick got up so quickly the chair made a rather unpleasant scraping noise on the floor and started pacing the office.

"I don't mean that. It's appalling what she says you have done. Why did you even take this job? You hate muggles. You despise us. We are just animals to you. You'd probably rather kill me – just like all those others. You torture people for fun. You are a criminal and murderer. And – and I thought we could be friends."

At the last sentence he turned back to the desk and looked at his opposite accusingly.

"I respected you. I even liked you. I mean you're odd and I've been told you're from and old and somewhat eccentric wizard family, but I thought underneath it all…"

Lucius raised an eyebrow.

"Now, now. Don't get all presumptuous on me. Friends?" he stopped himself, then pursued another thought. "You shouldn't believe everything you read, Alfred."

"What do you mean?"

Lucius sat back and waited for the secretary who had just re-entered the office to finish serving them tea. It gave him time to order his thoughts and try and salvage the situation. He had to retain his post and keep this silly muggle on his side. He took a sip, prepared his explanation and finally lowered his cup with a sigh.

"My dear Alfred," he said somberly. "Before I try and explain myself, I urgently need to ask you again the question I put to you before: how did you get this book?"

Sedgewick shrugged.

"It was waiting for me at home when I came back from work at the university yesterday evening. My wife said it arrived by post. Just like you see it, brown wrapper, no sender."

Lucius nodded, no owl, no sender, seemingly untraceable. It could have been sent by a wizarding person as well as by any of the muggles who were aware of Weasley's new policies and had been given access to magical objects, including books. Well, he'd get to that later.

The blond wizard looked deeply into the muddy brown eyes of his visitor that seemed oddly enlarged behind his broad-rimmed glasses.

"Alfred," he paused for effect. "My friend, if I may still call you that. Has it occurred to you that this is a plot hatched not by those who would wish you well and would warn you against me, but by those that desire the new age of goodwill and cooperation between muggles and wizards to fail? Otherwise, why didn't they put their name on the parcel? What do they have to hide?"

Sedgewick swallowed and blinked, but did not object.

"Muggles have been afraid of wizards for centuries. Remember, you used to torture and burn our kind. And we in turn have grown wary of you. If a muggle sent you this book, they are still afraid of us, and hope this new policy of openness will fail. If a wizard sent it to you, they are most likely of the persuasion my ex-wife falsely maintains I hold, enemies of muggles and haters of your kind."

The muggle cleared his throat, looking faintly hopeful now.

"So your wife is lying…"

"Ex-wife!"

"Sorry, Lucius, ex-wife is lying? You never were a – eh – Death Eater?"

The wizard smirked inwardly: he had got him already. Ruthlessly suppressing his glee at the man's gullibility Lucius launched into an abbreviated and somewhat bowdlerized version of his involvement with Lord Voldemort. As he listened to himself he decided that old Marcellus Tethering, his advocatus, who had so successfully got him out of Azkaban prison a few years ago, would be proud of him.

At the end of his little speech Sedgewick was completely suckered in. The muggle had even left him his copy of that obnoxious book so he could perform some spellwork to perhaps identify the sender.

"You know," said the professor as they parted. "I am so glad I came and talked to you – man to man. This plot to discredit you is just so low; and these people, whoever they are, are beyond contempt. I hope you find them. I will never again believe any of these stories I hear about you."

Lucius got up to compliment his visitor out. Suppressing a brief shudder of distaste at the physical contact he shook Sedgewick's hand with some warmth.

"Thank you, Alfred. Your trust means a lot to me. As a matter of fact, we should decide to share any rumors we hear freely with each other – just to pre-empt misunderstandings in the future."

The parapsychologist nodded eagerly.

"Certainly, my friend. I will let you know. And thank you again for your patience with my rather impolite accusations."

Lucius slapped him on the back.

"Now, now, my dear man, no hard feelings. No hard feelings."

The muggle left and Lucius' fake smile dropped immediately, to be replaced by a rather thoughtful frown as he sat back behind his desk. Someone had decided to mix things up a little, and if he tried to go by motivation, the list of suspects proved rather extensive.

The wizard picked up one of his raven feather quills and absentmindedly dipped it into his ink well as he ran his other hand over the book in front of him. He turned it and once again stared at Narcissa's scowling features.

"Was this your doing, pet? Have you got some serious thoughts of revenge into that moderately pretty head of yours?" he said softly. He made the quill hover threateningly over her face, and when she remained still for a moment he quickly drew a small pencil moustache across her upper lip. She started to rub at it furiously, only managing to smudge ink all over herself. He smirked at her.

"Perhaps not," he continued. "You never had the brains for a good intrigue."

He leaned back and looked out of his office window. Really there were several possibilities: a personal adversary of his could have decided to make life difficult for him and alert the muggles to his rather checkered past. Their aim would be to cause trouble for him, but their attitude towards Weasley's policies might be neutral. The number of those people was potentially legion. Lucius Malfoy had never been short of enemies.

Then there could be people who felt strongly in favor of Arthur's plans, saw him as an impediment and wanted to be rid of him. They merely sought to replace him with one of their creatures who was ready to lick the boots of those muggles for them.

And finally there could exist a faction – muggle or wizard or both – that really felt like him about the new muggle cooperation. Discrediting him would be only one small step in the process of creating a rift between the representatives of both sides at the Office of Muggle Cooperation. But if these people existed, why hadn't they talked to him? Didn't they know he was already doing their work?

Speculations like this, he realized, did not help him much to narrow down the field of possible suspects. Still, the problem needed to be dealt with speedily. Crossing a Malfoy had been a foolish idea when the Dark Lord had been in power and he had been a Death Eater. If the Malfoys were to prosper in future it had to remain so. It was imperative that he found the sender, and he had to make an example of them.

He rewrapped the book and strode out of the office after a brief, snarled instruction to his secretary to owl him or floo him at Malfoy Manor should anything occur that required his immediate attention during the rest of the day.

* * *

Eleanor straightened up after crouching down to install the protective ward and faced her two visitors.

"Of course a demonstration at this point might prove rather difficult, unless I can persuade either of you, or perhaps a house elf …"

At that precise moment the door to her study opened and before she could shout a warning she watched helplessly as the body of her husband was swept up in a wild tangle of robes until he hung like a bat from the ceiling, the ward-spells suspending him by his feet. His serpent cane and a small wrapped parcel clattered to the floor beneath him.

Ignoring a string of rather colorful Malfoy expletives she hurried over to him. Her two guests, a scruffy-looking witch and a goblin, watched curiously.

"Gods, Lucius, I'm sorry. Are you all right?" she called up to him.

He glared down at her.

"Does this look all right to you? _Finite incantatum_! What in the name of Merlin are you doing?" he growled as he struggled. "Get me down, will you?"

She swallowed and lifted her wand. Lucius would have been her very last choice of a test subject.

"_Dissolvincula_," she incanted and quickly added a floating spell as the wards released rather abruptly.

Lucius managed an awkward twist in mid-air and eventually landed on his feet. He shook back his hair and straightened his robes before he bent to pick up his cane and Narcissa's book.

"Vell, vell, he looks not damaged," said the witch in a heavily accented voice and gave the lord of Malfoy Manor an appraising glance. "Ve vill buy zis spell. Five-zousand galleons, you say?"

"Excuse me!" snarled Lucius.

Eleanor thought it better to intervene.

"Sorry about the accident," she apologized. "But you're home early today. I was just advising these people on ward spells. They are from the Gringotts branch office in Warsaw – had a few attempted burglaries over the last months. This is Roxana Kovalski. Roxana, this is my husband, Lucius Malfoy."

Still rather disgruntled-looking Lucius shook hands with the witch, but then turned to take his leave.

"I'll be in my study, see me when you're done, Eleanor."

She quickly settled the purchase of the spellwork with her clients and walked across the hall to follow him.

As she entered the room she head him call to her from the adjacent bedroom. She followed his voice and watched him sitting on the low bench at the foot of the bed while a house-elf pulled off his boots. He had already taken off his coat and shirt, and she leaned against the door-frame taking in the sight of his bare chest and arms.

The house elf finished with the boots and the wizard impatiently shoved him out of the way with one foot before stepping into a pair of beaked slipper his servant had set out for him. He stood up, rolled his shoulders and stretched with a wince.

"Must have pulled something when you strung me up back there," he complained to her. "You know, sometimes I think all of this defense stuff is not such a good idea. You're getting way too inventive and much too dangerous. Next thing we'll have to put a warning sign on your door."

She bit down on a grin and moved into the room.

"But Lucius, just a little suspension spellwork, and you pull a muscle already? Why, are you sure you're not getting old?"

She had reached him, and ran her hands over his warm, bare skin. She could feel the blond curls at the center of his chest under her fingers and lightly curved her nails inwards in provocation. His arms encircled her as he cupped her ass none too gently in his hands and crushed her hips to his.

"Old? You're really asking for it today, aren't you? I'll show you old…" he growled.

She opened her mouth for a reply, when suddenly the fire-place to her side flared green and a moment later she could see the head of a young woman in the flames.

"Mr. Malfoy, excuse me, please." said the head.

Lucius turned with a hiss of anger, his hands moving off her bottom, though he did not let go of her.

"Do you mind?" he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm in my bedroom, and I'm just about to take my wife to bed. Believe me, you are excused."

Eleanor lifted a brow at him.

"Who…?"

"My secretary," he snapped. "Why? You are still here? How plain do I have to make myself? Fuck off!"

"Umm, I wish I could," the young witch said, looking like she meant it, too. "But it's the Minister's orders. A muggle has been killed."

"Good," said Lucius, nonplussed. "One less of the buggers. I still don't see why you or Weasley have to disturb me for that. Go and celebrate with a butterbeer."

She blinked at him in shock.

"No, there's been a murder of one of our contacts! All members of the Office for Muggle Cooperation are being called in. We're having an emergency meeting. The muggles are sending some of their aurors, I think they call them 'pullice.' It's all in an uproar! You have to come back to the Ministry, please, Mr. Malfoy."

Lucius rolled his head back on his shoulders in frustration.

"Aw, crap! Not Sedgewick, is it?"

He faced the fire-place again.

"Look I'll be there in a few minutes. Now get lost!"

The flames flared one more time and then the grate was empty again.

"We could still pull off a quick one," he suggested with a leer, grabbing her again. "Hearing about killing muggles rather puts me in the mood – just like the good old days…"

But she shook her head emphatically.

"Lucius, with your checkered past and your attitude you're probably their prime suspect already," she admonished him. "I think if you delay longer than absolutely necessary, it will only look bad. I owe you one when you come home tonight. Witch's Promise! I'll even throw in a massage, to make up for catching you in the suspension ward."

He sighed and finally released her.

"Fine, you win for now, but believe me I _will_ take you up on that. In the meantime, can you check this book for me and find out who the last few people were who were in contact with it?" He turned towards the bed and handed her the wrapped parcel.

Eleanor slipped the book from the paper and looked at him in surprise. It seemed she would be able to read a copy of Narcissa's infamous book after all. Still, it was rather unexpected to receive one from Lucius himself of all people. Had her husband read it, and did he know that it contained information about Draco that Snape thought incriminating?

"Narcissa's biography?" she asked, then saw the witch's smudged face. "Did you read it? What happened to her?"

"Accident," said Lucius curtly as she watched Narcissa's picture scowl at her and point furiously in the wizard's direction. "And no, I'm not planning to read this crap. Someone sent the book to my muggle contact yesterday to cause trouble."

She nodded.

"Sure, I should know by the time you come home," she said.

Lucius thanked her, stretched again and clapped his hands. "Nibbs, get your rancid hide back in here, and bring my boots!"


	7. Minister Weasley's Troubles

**Minister Weasley's Troubles**

_"A decision is what a man makes when he can't find anybody to serve on a committee." (Fletcher Knebel)_

Lucius Malfoy strode into the large board room three doors down from his office at the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes on level three of the Ministry of Magic. Seemingly in keeping with the rather somber occasion for the meeting maintenance had chosen a gloomy and rainy exterior for the enchanted windows of the deep, cavernous room.

The wizard closed the tall door behind him and took a quick look around to orient himself. Almost everyone seemed to have made it to the meeting before him. Among the muggles, witches and wizards who sat around the large, oval mahogany table he recognized Arthur Weasley, the Minister of Magic himself. In the dim, dull light Lucius thought he saw hectic spots on the harried-looking face of the wizard. His battered, grey felt hat sat precariously off to one side of his thinning ruffled shock of bright red hair and his threadbare tie was half-undone.

The elder Malfoy felt his lips twitch with a smug sneer at seeing his old enemy so flustered and put-out by the recent events. He himself in contrast showed perfect composure in his flawless attire, from the rich brushed velvet sheen of his cloak to the starched stiffness of the silk cuffs of his pressed and spotless shirt.

Scanning the table for empty seats, he saw an unoccupied chair next to his old associate Daimon Spofford, which suited him fine. With a swish of his cloak he rounded the assembled ministry employees and took his place, carefully leaning his serpent cane against the table top as he settled in. He deliberated for a moment, then sought to make eye contact with the muggle Sedgewick, who was sitting opposite him and obviously had not been killed, forced a grimace of a smile on his face and nodded briefly. The professor swallowed nervously and nodded back.

"So good of you to finally grace us with your presence, Mr. Malfoy," snapped Weasley at him and leaned forward over the table. "After all the safety of our guests and counterparts only happens to be _your_ personal responsibility. We have been waiting for you for twenty minutes! Your secretary said initially you even refused to attend, she had to beg and plead with you to come."

Lucius leaned back in his chair, forced himself to remain calm and propped his elbows up on the armrests. He would get the little tattle-tale of a witch for mouthing off about him like that. Who did she think she had to answer to? Keeping the sudden surge of anger he felt to himself, he regarded the red-haired wizard with amused detachment. Weasly seemed almost ready to propel himself across the table to strangle him.

"Please, Arthur, obviously that was a misunderstanding," he drawled. "As soon as I had informed myself as to the gravity of the situation I rushed here from Wiltshire as fast as I could. Of course this is a terrible tragedy, and you can believe me when I say that my department will do everything in our power to extend our full cooperation to the investigation and get to the bottom of this appalling incident. So, who is the victim of this unfortunate tragedy?"

For a moment the minister seemed unable to speak.

"As if you didn't know!" he finally spluttered. "Here you are, pretending that you of all people don't know what's going on!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." The blond wizard shook his head. "Arthur, now I know that all muggle and wizard liaisons are my responsibility. And believe me: I take that responsibility very seriously. But I have only just arrived. You will have to brief me. Or did you intend that statement as some kind of unfounded accusation?"

His mild and slightly patronizing tones had sharpened as he spoke the last sentence.

"Hem, hem!" interrupted someone from the side of the table, and Lucius discerned the dumpy form of Dolores Umbridge.

"Please, if I may be so bold, minister," she chirped. "The murdered muggle was Dr. Evan Morris, our healer liaison, Mr. Malfoy."

Weasley shot her a vicious glance, but Lucius gave her a condescending nod. Her well-timed interruption had managed to keep the situation from escalating.

"How do we know it was murder?" he asked her.

"Well, a knife to the back usually says murder to me," answered a sarcastic, rumbling voice.

Lucius looked around to the latest speaker and saw a heavy-set man in an ugly, functional grey suit with short-cropped hair and a walrus moustache. He tried to keep the disgust out of his face. A muggle had dared to address him uninvited and unintroduced.

"And, pray, who are you?" he asked with a brief snort of annoyance.

The man stared at him brazenly and curiously. He had obviously never seen a true wizard before. His muddy brown eyes traveled from Lucius' long blond hair over his pale, aristocratic face, down to the curved serpent pin that held his silk cravat in place, and along the rich black velvet trim of his robes to his elegant, manicured hands. He seemed to find what he saw faintly amusing. Lucius decided he disliked the muggle immensely already.

"Detective Jones, Scotland Yard," he said curtly.

That didn't seem to make a lot of sense. The man certainly had nothing Scottish about him. Judging by his accent he was Cockney through and through. If "detective" had the same Latin word root as a _detego_ spell he was a "finder". A finder of what, of murderers?

"He's some sort of muggle auror, apparently," hissed Spofford next to him in a hurried whisper and Lucius nodded as if he'd been in the know all along.

"Anyway," interjected a nasal voice now. "As I was saying before this interruption: we would not be here had it not been for the minister's unfortunate and hasty policies."

Lucius turned away from his old Death Eater associate and now found himself listening to Percy Weasley, who ran the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. He smirked. So this was to turn into yet another internal Weasley family feud. While tedious to witness he welcomed it this time. It meant the pressure would be off him for the next few hours at least while Weasel senior and junior were fighting it out between them. It wasn't the first meeting like that since he had assumed his position.

The wizard let the heated exchange between the two men wash over him and considered.

Percy Weasly didn't like him. Well, Lucius could hardly fault him for that. After all, several years ago he had slipped his sister Lord Voldemort's old diary and had caused a very serious case of possession that had nearly killed her. If someone had tried to harm his sisters in this way they would not be sitting at the same table as him now, they would be dead – so young Weasley had actually shown considerable restraint.

Percy's downfall in the blond wizard's opinion was his almost pathological ambition. One of Fudge's last orders as Minister of Magic had been the young man's promotion to head of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes – and while Weasley junior had avidly accepted, he was in way over his head. At least he was smart enough to recognize that Lucius knew many secrets around the ministry and was still able to call in favors and pull strings, so – grudgingly – he asked for the older man's help and on occasion sought his advice. The former Death Eater was only too happy to oblige – for his own reasons.

Now young Percy sprouted the lines Lucius had fed him surreptitiously over the last few weeks regarding muggles and the errors in his father's policies and the blond wizard listened with some degree of smug self-satisfaction as the two Weasleys sparred kicking back and forth his arguments. It was always fun watching one of his sock puppets in action.

The rising volume of voices brought him back and he found that both wizards had actually got up and stood facing each other across the board-room table, their faces about as red as their ruffled hair.

"And then you allow people to make someone like HIM chief muggle liaison!" yelled Percy Weasley at his father with a nasty side-look at Lucius.

The blond wizard sat up straighter. This assuredly was not an opinion he had inculcated in the young man. It seemed his anger and his personal feelings had finally got the better of him. This situation needed to be salvaged, but before Lucius could intervene, a lanky, bespectacled man had risen and waved his hands to interrupt the two wizards.

"Please, gentlemen," Professor Sedgewick pleaded. "Please! Mr. Weasely! I appreciate that there is some difference of opinion here about how quickly and how thoroughly our worlds should come in contact with each other – believe me, we are having the same arguments on our side, too. But I won't have Mr. Malfoy slandered. I think Lucius is an excellent choice for muggle liaison! And I know for a fact that there are people out there who are trying to discredit him. I won't have anything said against him!"

Lucius blinked in surprise and noticed that several jaws dropped around the table. This was a heartfelt endorsement he had hardly expected. He knew he had effectively hoodwinked the muggle with regards to Narcissa's biography, but even he had not expected the man to be this stupid and trusting. Muggles truly were a ridiculous breed of humans. Hell, there were kneazles out there with more intelligence.

"Lucius," Sedgewick now turned to him with a smile. "Couldn't we solve this by giving everyone this Veriserum drink that you told me about the other day?"

The blond wizard raised his brows and fought the impulse to correct the silly muggle on yet another term he had got garbled in his mind. Without anything to hide for once in his life and in possession of a disturbingly clear conscience he found that he wasn't objecting to this suggestion half as much as he should. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Excuse me," interrupted a voice next to him before he could speak, however, and he found himself looking at Daimon Spofford who regarded the muggle with a look of outrage on his face. "No one can be forced to take Veritaserum without a warrant. And a warrant can only be issued if there are compelling grounds for suspicion. This would be the protocol we would have to follow by law if a wizard was murdered. I don't see why we would want to deviate from this for a mere muggle."

"_Mere_ muggle!" objected Arthur Weasley with a scowl in the direction of the elderly wizard and a moment later Spofford and the minister had got into an argument.

Lucius sighed – this would result in a splitting headache, he already knew it – and watched Sedgewick sit down again, his long face slack with embarrassment and disappointment at being turned down and sidelined. He forced himself to give the man an encouraging smile.

'Like throwing a stale crust of bread to a house elf,' he thought in contempt as he watched the parapsychologist push his glasses up his nose and smile back in gratitude.

Spofford and Weasley senior were still quarreling. It was time to bring his former Death Eater associate down a notch.

"Daimon, Daimon, methinks the lady doth protest too much," he hissed under his breath during one of Arthur's attacks. "You haven't been a naughty wizard playing with knives now, have you?"

The wizard stared at him in alarm and closed his mouth. With Spofford finally silenced Arthur Weasley calmed down somewhat.

It appeared that now the muggle in the grey suit who had maintained during his introduction that he was from Scotland had something to say.

"It seems to me we are arguing as if it was a foregone conclusion that a wizard killed Dr. Morris. Isn't that a bit rash? Wouldn't you lot have used magic to kill him?" asked the detective gruffly. "Like wave one of those wands at him, stick a couple pins in a doll, some voodoo, whatever you do to get rid of someone? Do wizards really have to use knives?"

This didn't go down too well with either the younger Weasley, who obviously wanted to pin the murder on his father's misguided policies, nor with the older Weasley, who would have liked nothing better than to see the murder laid at the feet of his old enemy, Lucius Malfoy, and to get rid of him for good. They both objected loudly, until Ms. Umbridge had managed to cough long enough to gain everyone's attention.

"Please, ladies, gentlemen," she warbled, spreading he stubby fingers placatingly. "Aren't we here for improved understanding and cooperation among each other? Why are we as wizards so eager to claim responsibility for this shameful deed, as if we secretly wish we had committed it?"

Both Weasleys looked at her in outraged shock and shut up rather abruptly.

"I think we should listen to what this excellent muggle detective has to say. Perhaps it was none of us. Perhaps this was some internal muggle affair. Perhaps this man had enemies, perhaps it was some random act of violence. What messages are we sending to our newfound friends, preening ourselves over this horrible incident?"

Lucius smirked at her. Umbridge seemed to prove to be a rather valuable addition to the team after all. That had been a very nice way to shut down the two Weasels, but then, as others joined the exchange, he found that he began to have doubts. He knew he hadn't stuck a knife into that muggle, much as he might wish he had. So who was responsible? And were they perhaps sitting in the very room with them? Would they argue for a wizarding killer or a muggle killer?

The blond wizard found his thoughts drift as the discussion moved back and forth once again. There was more to people's positions than met the eye. Had Umbridge deflected suspicions back onto the muggles, because she had something to hide? Why had old Spofford reacted so strongly to the suggestion of Veritaserum? Why would the Weasleys advocate a wizard or witch as the murderer when that served only to weaken their prized muggle relations?

Lucius felt his head swim and rubbed his temples. What in the blazes had really happened? He was sure that the discussion in the stuffy board room would not yield any answers. The solution might very well already be waiting for him at home. If Eleanor had managed to identify the sender of the book they could be looking at a good candidate for the murder. He needed to get back to Malfoy Manor and to the discoveries his wife had made.

Time to take control of this farce. Lucius stood up tossing back his cloak in an imperious gesture of resolve. People stopped talking and looked at him

"As chief of muggle liaisons I have found it most illuminating to listen to the insightful and valuable opinions that have been expressed here today," he announced.

Minister Weasley scowled at him in annoyance. He had little reason to approve of Lucius taking up the role of elder statesman.

"I would like to thank everyone for their candid appraisals of this terrible incident. However at this point we seem to have reached an impasse. If my esteemed muggle counterparts and Detective Jones approve I would like to propose that we need to obtain more facts before we continue to argue fruitlessly about mere opinions and conjectures. The current discussion only serves to engender mistrust and dissent among us, which will only poison our newfound spirit of openness and cooperation.

Perhaps we should let Mr. Jones head the muggle side of the investigation and –," he quickly scanned the table and saw the familiar face of his wife's friend Marigold Brannock looking at him, "– Auror Brannock here the wizarding side. Both teams should be encouraged to freely share information about their findings."

He looked around and registered some deep frowns as well as quite a few assenting nods. Before anyone else could speak, however, Professor Sedgewick had also risen.

"I think this is a splendid idea," he exclaimed. "In fact I am extremely pleased to hear that my friend Lucius is the one voice of reason and sanity in this meeting. Speaking for our side of the delegation I fully endorse the proposal."

Both Weaselys looked surprised and slightly miffed, but after the muggle's declaration there was little they could do. Lucius sat back down with a slight sneer in the direction of the minister and lapsed again into detached silence as other members of the Ministry worked out the details of the investigation with the muggles.

An hour or so later the meeting was finally drawing towards a close. Sedgewick stopped Lucius as everyone was leaving the room and ostentatiously slapped him on the shoulder and shook his hand. The blond wizard winced at the familiarity, but noticed that other attendants were watching closely and controlled himself as the muggle congratulated him on his unprejudiced level-headedness and thanked him for the cooperation he was extending Scotland Yard. The Weasleys seemed finally united in shooting him dark looks as they squeezed past him.

Eventually it was all over. Lucius contemplated stopping by his office and reducing his gossipy secretary to a heap of quivering misery for reporting their conversation in his fire-place verbatim to the minister but thought better of it. He was more interested in finding out about Eleanor's investigation.

As he approached the bank of fire-places in the entrance hall that would allow him to floo home, he suddenly felt a tug on the sleeve of his robes.

"Pst," hissed a quiet voice, and as he glanced around in annoyance he found himself looking into the shifty eyes of Mundungus Fletcher. He sighed.

"What do you want?" he drawled. "I'm in a hurry."

He realized he hadn't even been lying when the pong of Fletcher's pipe tobacco hit him. What did this man smoke? Hag's hair and bat droppings?

"Well, would it interest you to know that Mr. Borgin recently sold a knife in Knockturn Alley?" the crook asked him sidling up to him.

Lucius tried to hold his breath without making it too obvious.

"As it happens, I am particularly interested in knives right now," he whispered, suddenly alert. "What do you have for me?"

Mundungus pulled out a battered old sepia picture depicting a vicious-looking dagger with a curved black wood handle and a flame-shaped damasked blade. Lucius barely suppressed a gasp as he saw the Malfoy serpent etched along its center. With a jolt he recognized the knife as a custom made naga keris given to his father by a business associate. He had sold it with other items of his father's effects some years ago.

He softly swore under his breath and found to his annoyance that his hands trembled slightly as he took the photograph from his associate to give the weapon a closer inspection.


	8. Obliviate!

**"Obliviate!"**

_"A truth that's told with bad intent  
__Beats all the lies you can invent." (William Blake)_

Lucius Malfoy strode up the broad curved stairs of the Manor that led to the upper part of the house and towards his bedroom. It was early evening and the sunlight that streamed through the tall gothic windows already showed the golden tints of sunset. It had been an aggravating and vexing day, from the confrontation with Sedgewick and the rather nasty surprise Eleanor had sprung on him in the morning to his secretary's interruption and the disorganized and confusing meeting over the murder of Dr. Morris during the afternoon. He hoped that at least the rest of the day would prove to be more pleasant.

Hopefully Eleanor would have some answers for him, and she would be waiting for him where he had left her earlier to make good on her promise. As he opened the heavy door to their bedchamber he was not disappointed on the first count. His wife was stretched out on their broad bed wearing nothing but an ankle-length grey silk slip dress. Her bare feet were peeking out from the flimsy fabric that revealed the curves of her body as she lay lazily on her side, her head cradled in one hand, while her other spread open the pages of a familiar-looking black book that was propped up against a pillow beside her.

He felt his lips stretch in an anticipatory smile and was just about to greet her when she looked up at him and the sharp glance that hit him made him stop cold in his tracks. Her face seemed a carefully expressionless mask, and tension tightened her mouth as she regarded him as if he were a stranger. She sat up and drew her legs up against her body in what seemed to Lucius to be a gesture of self-protection.

"Eleanor?" he asked her tentatively, having the distinct impression that something was seriously wrong with her.

Her stare did not waver and she licked her lips as if she was about to speak, but she did not answer him.

"What's going on?" he urged her, feeling truly apprehensive now. "What happened?"

She seemed to collect herself and come to a decision, but he still could not read her. Was she scared, angry, upset?

After a brief pause she picked up the book from the pillow, cracked the spine backwards to keep it open at the page she had been reading and pushed it over to him.

"Here," she said with some vehemence, her voice sounding rough and accusatory. "This is what's been happening. See for yourself."

He sighed. Would he ever live Narcissa's book down? Now even his own wife was shoving his ex's lies and slander back in his face. He felt anger rise in him in response.

"You too, now?" he challenged her. "Of all people, she managed to sucker you in, too, with her falsehoods and distorted half-truths? I thought you knew me better than that. What's she been feeding you? That I had numerous secret affairs while we were together? That I betrayed you? Does she have you believe what she wants you to?"

Eleanor's face still seemed closed off to him, and now she actually looked away from him. Her voice that answered him sounded lifeless and dull.

"It's nothing to do with me or with the two of us. It's about Draco. I can't believe I didn't see it. I can't believe I trusted you. Severus tried to warn me, and I actually defended you. I am so stupid! I was so blind!"

"Eleanor, I…" he said, but she turned away from him.

"Just read it," she snapped. "Don't try and talk your way out of this. Just see what she says. And then look at me and dare to tell me it isn't true."

He knew he would not be able to reason with her. So with a sigh he leaned his cane against the bedpost, sat down and picked up the volume at the page where she had opened it for him.

_…I heard his terrified screams muffled behind the heavy oak door and despite my fear my motherly instincts over-rode all other concerns. Putting any thought as to my own safety out of my mind I rushed to help him, to rescue him from his own father._

_It would not be the first time Lucius raised his hand against his only son, but I had never heard my little boy cry out in such pain and fear. This time I would not, I could not, stand by and watch. It had become too much to bear._

_I crashed through the door of his study and froze at what I saw: he had thrown Draco's tiny body halfway across his desk and was laying into him wielding his belt like a whip. The child shrieked in pain as the leather and heavy buckle hit him with a crack. I threw myself over his small form and felt the chastisement on my own body as the belt made contact again._

_It hurt beyond anything I had ever known. Lucius' face was white with fury, his eyes seemed unfocused with rage and it took him one more lash before he even seemed to realize that he was beating me now instead of his son._

_With a snarl he grabbed my arm and threw me away from him. I staggered and fell to the ground._

_"Get out!" he roared at me. "Get out of here!"_

_I trembled in terror, anticipating that he would have no compunction to hit me again, and felt tears streaking down my cheeks. _

_"Not without Draco," I sobbed, trying to get up, steeling myself to confront him…_

The text continued on the next page, but Lucius closed the book with a snap and threw it back on the mattress. Eleanor was facing him again.

"Well," she challenged him. "Lies, falsehoods? Is she telling the truth about this, or is she making it all up? And even more important than that: is this the true reason why Lavinia had a bandage on her hand the other day, and why she is bruised and scraped every time I bathe her or change her clothes now. Is this the reason why Maleficia can't seem to look me in the face these past few weeks? Because she knows? Because she's seen it all happen before to Draco? What kind of monster would use his children like that? Look at me! Tell me! Did you beat Draco like that?"

She sounded angrier than he had seen her in a long time, but her last question also betrayed anguish. Lucius forced himself to look at her calmly. The seething fury he felt at Narcissa and the damage her words had wrought could not distract him now. He knew his wife well enough to realize that his next words could cost him his family. Where her daughter was concerned Eleanor took no prisoners. He composed himself.

"No, Narcissa is not lying," he said quietly.

Eleanor gasped, her deep green eyes widening in shock and outrage; and he realized that perhaps she had really only waited for him to deny it, to reassure her.

"What!..."

He lifted a placating hand.

"Please let me finish. Hear me out," he pleaded with her.

"The scenario she describes took place, but Draco was not 'tiny'. I still recall what happened: Draco was 12 years old. He was impossible to control at the time, would not pay attention to anything he was being told. Narcissa and the other Blacks indulged his every whim, and rules meant nothing to him. He would take and steal what he wanted – I caught him one time at _Flourish &_ _Blotts_ ripping pages with spells that he liked out of books. I had complaints from some of my Death Eater associates because he took stuff from other Slytherins at school. For crying out loud, he could have anything he wanted, he just had to ask for it.

I had given him one instruction that I was determined to enforce at all costs: my study was to be off limits to him. I had not made that decision arbitrarily – I tried to keep him out in order to protect him. I was a Death Eater. I had things in my possession that could kill him, or worse. I did not want to put his life in danger. One item in particular that I owned I needed to keep out of his reach.

I think you heard the story from Dumbledore or from someone else at Hogwarts? About Tom Riddle's old diary, and how it possessed and almost killed Ginny Weasley?"

Eleanor swallowed and nodded.

"You gave it to her," she said quietly.

"Yes, I needed to be rid of it. I knew that Voldemort would try to possess anyone weak and foolish enough to open the book and that he would use them to come back into existence. I told Draco, I explained, I made him promise me. And one day in summer I came home earlier than he had thought and found the door to my office open. He sat at my desk, the diary in his hands, smirking at me – and I lost it.

After months of worrying, after telling him over and over again I finally saw red. Yeah, I grabbed him and I pulled off my belt and I actually beat him. I am not proud of it, but at that moment I saw him, my only son, my only child, dead before me, his spirit destroyed and absorbed irrevocably into the Dark Lord, the last of the Malfoys gone because of his damn pig-headed stubbornness and willfulness. At that moment I wanted to punish him, I wanted to break his will, to have him for once obey me so I could keep him safe.

I was at my wit's end. Part of the reason why I slipped the book to the youngest Weasley a few days later was that I finally wanted it out of the house. Sure, the Ministry was conducting raids, and it would have been incriminating evidence, and I wanted to get back at Arthur for inconveniencing me through his annoying snooping, but I was more worried about Draco finding it again.

Of course Draco screamed bloody murder when I hit him – that should prove to you that he wasn't used to this kind of treatment – and of course Narcissa came rushing in. I don't remember if I hit her or not, I may have. To tell you the truth I don't remember much after I saw my son with Voldemort's book.

I know I lost control, and a parent shouldn't, but it seemed nothing else was getting through to him. If you want to accuse me, accuse me of exposing my son to the Dark Arts items I owned, but not for disciplining him in order to keep him safe."

He paused and looked at her. She had been staring at him intently throughout his explanation. Now she looked down and ran her hands over the cover of the book where Narcissa's picture was regarding them.

"She made it look like this happened when Draco was just four or five," she said quietly. "She never gave a reason for your punishment of him."

The blond wizard shook his head emphatically.

"No, that was the only time when I ever truly beat him, and I know he was about to rejoin Hogwarts for his second year when it happened, because during that year Voldemort made the Weasley girl open the Chamber of Secrets at school and I was dismissed as a governor. These days, looking back, I regret what I did to Draco. I should have handled it better."

He gave a short, bitter laugh. "That's Narcissa for you, telling half-truths that would set people against each other. She's good at that." His eyes never left his wife's face. Would she believe him? And if she did, would she understand?

He found he had held his breath when he saw he slowly nod. Her face softened as she regarded him though she still looked as if something was bothering her.

"Okay," she said. "I believe you. You owned up to what you did. If I have to take either your word for it or Narcissa's, I chose to trust you. It's just I don't know what to think any more, I'm so worried."

Her voice sounded small, uncertain, and Lucius, who had focused on her accusations with regards to Draco, now recalled her speaking also about his daughter. He bent forwards and captured one of her hands. He had been so busy lately with all the problems at the Ministry, he had had little time to see his little girl and to really talk to Eleanor. Everything had seemed fine.

"So tell me what's wrong with Lavinia. What's all this about Maleficia and about Severus warning you? What is this really about?"

Eleanor sat up straight and Lucius watched her twist some of the thin silk of her slip-dress in her hands as she tried to think of a way to tell him about her concerns.

"I'm afraid of what's been happening to Lavinia lately," she began, and then the words just came tumbling out: about the little girl's mysterious injuries, about Maleficia's evasiveness and about Severus' visit and his accusations.

"It's all so vague, I can't lay my finger on it. It could all have an innocent explanation and I could just be paranoid, but I still don't think it's right. And then when I read Narcissa's book all the pieces seemed to fall into place. It seemed such a horrible, such a simple explanation."

She hid her face in her hands.

"Gods, Lucius, what did I imagine you to be? What did I accuse you of?"

'Only that I was a father very much like my own,' thought Lucius grimly, but he did not blame his wife aloud. It seemed as if the implications of her words had just hit her and she was already appalled enough by her own suspicions of him.

He suddenly felt sick and tired of all the evasiveness, of all the lies, the deceptions and the divisions. If he and Eleanor couldn't trust each other any more, if they were not on the same fighting team, everything would fall apart. For a moment he wondered if all the seemingly unrelated incidents that had happened over the past few weeks were really interconnected, whether they made some perverse sense as parts of a plot to bring them down.

There was only one thing he could do, only one way he knew how to fight back. He stretched out his arms and pulled Eleanor towards him. For one brief second he thought he sensed resistance and his stomach lurched, but then she moved against him, flung her arms around him and buried her face in his long hair that fell over his shoulders. She trembled as he held her.

"I feel so stupid," she said, her voice muffled by the collar of his robes. "Everything else over the years has been easy in comparison, defying the Ministry, cheating the wizengamot, defeating Death Eaters, fighting Voldemort, even. I know how to defend against an open attack, how to use magic against magic. But this is different: thinking of someone harming Lavinia… I'm just going to pieces. I can't think straight."

He stroked down her back.

"We figure it out together. We'll be careful, we'll watch over her. I'll keep a close eye on Maleficia if you think she has something to do with it. Look, you need to be able to trust your instincts when you are an adept at Defense against the Dark Arts. I'm sure you're right about something being fishy."

He sat up straighter, pulling her into his lap.

"I will also go and hex the hell out of Severus for going round spreading rumors like that. If I'd known what a meddlesome fool he'd be I'd have thought twice about making him Lavinia's godfather," he added with some venom in his voice.

He watched her lift her head and smile up at him despite herself.

"There you go Lucius, thinking that going round and cursing a few folks is going to solve everything… Severus ismerely worried, just like me, just like you."

He sighed: "I have to do something. I feel we're fighting an enemy we can't see. From what you're telling me now maybe it's even an enemy who is powerful enough to attack us at home where we least expect it."

He began to tell her about the Ministry meeting, about the Weasleys, Umbridge, Spofford, the muggle detective, Sedgewick and Mundungus Fletcher's strange information regarding Octavian's old dagger. She curled up against him and listened intently.

"Do you think the dagger Fletcher showed you is the one that killed Dr. Morris?" she asked, looking up at him.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know yet, maybe he was just working my nerves. That's why I appointed Marigold Brannock to head our auror team. I was hoping that you might find out about their investigation. She would tell you, wouldn't she?"

Eleanor looked as if she was about to object, so he hurriedly continued.

"And maybe we won't even need to do that. I think whoever sent the Sedgewicks Narcissa's book has a hand in this whole affair, sowing distrust and suspicions. Maybe he is the murderer. Did you perform the detection charms?"

She lifted herself up and sat cross-legged on the mattress before him. With a frown she picked up the book and weighted it in her hands.

"Yeah, I did," she told him. "As you know, objects have a 'memory' and retain traces of the people who have touched them – that's how hauntings happen: a place retains the imprint of a human being and replays an event that had a powerful impact like a death or a heartbreak over and over again."

He nodded. "So who handled the book?" he asked.

She sighed.

"See there's the problem," she explained. "To obliviate people's thoughts and memories is easy, to obliviate the imprint of a person on an inanimate object requires considerable skill."

Lucius watched the image of his former wife smirk in triumph at him from the cover of her biography, and the blond wizard could already guess what Eleanor would tell him.

"Nothing!" She dropped the volume in frustration. "Believe me, I tried everything. I even looked up a batch of pretty esoteric reversion charms in the library. All I'm getting is a lanky man with spectacles bending over the book and reading. It's been wiped clean – expertly. Whoever is screwing with us knows their magic."

The wizard ran his thumb across his lips, lost in thought.

"You saw Alfred Sedgewick, the muggle who got the book in the post. So at the very least we know it's not just a muggle conspiracy, there's at least one wizard or witch in on this," he said slowly. "And the muggle detective and Dolores Umbridge wanted to pin it all on muggles, and Narcissa here is looking rather smug and happy at your failure. I really wonder why."


	9. Another Turn of the Screw

**Another Turn of the Screw**

_"You should trust any man in his own art provided he is skilled in it." (Aristotle)_

Eleanor woke in the early dawn light of an overcast and humid August day. She blinked, stretched lazily and felt her hand trail against the warm skin of Lucius' back. He lay on his side facing away from her. She saw the slope of his left shoulder exposed above the thin black satin sheet that covered him and his tousled, sleep-mussed hair that spilled across his pillow.

For a moment she just lay still and thought back to their conversation the previous evening. The image of her irate husband wielding his belt in punishment of a twelve-year old Draco remained vivid in her imagination. After all, Narcissa's account had been rather evocative. It still disturbed her, but she also remembered the haunted look in Lucius' grey eyes as he had spoken about the danger of Voldemort's diary, and had told her that he regretted his actions.

For her husband that came close to a confession of guilt. She had to admit that she truly believed his version of the events, and his words had effectively destroyed her suspicions with regards to her daughter. Together they would get to the bottom of Lavinia's strange bout of injuries, if they really had a sinister cause.

She hesitated for a moment, and then gently turned her body under the sheets to spoon around his sleeping form without waking him. She felt the light dusting of blond hair on his thighs brush against the skin of her legs, molded her hips and stomach around his firm buttocks and moved her chest against his back. As she laid an arm around him and gently stroked along his chest and flank he gave a soft, sleepy mumble that almost sounded like her name and settled deeper into her embrace. She smiled at his instinctive response to her and buried her face in his pale, silky hair.

As his scent filled her nostrils she found her mind travel back to some of the events that had followed their intense conversation about Narcissa's troublesome book. Lucius had eventually moved to the nightstand by his side of the bed, opened a drawer and firmly put away the biography. When he turned back he held a broad strip of black silk in his hands and looked at her in invitation.

"Blindfold," she said and swallowed. "For you or for me?"

He smirked.

"I think tonight you need it more than I do. And I think you already know why…"

"Blind," she said quietly, feeling a tingle of fear and anticipation. "Blind trust. Do you think you've earned it?"

"I think I've lost it," he told her, his voice sounding suddenly serious. "And I would very much like for you to prove me wrong, Eleanor."

She took a deep breath. How well he always knew how he could challenge her. How well she could guess what he needed. Silently she turned away from him in acquiescence and felt him come up behind her. For a moment the dark silk lay cool and soft against her closed lids, like a caress, then the fabric tightened as he secured it at the back of her head with a firm knot. For a brief moment she felt his hands laid on her shoulders in a parting stroke then he released her. She remained still in complete darkness.

"Stand up," she heard him. His tone anticipated no resistance, and she realized after a moment that he did not plan to help her either. Balancing herself against the soft yield of the mattress she stood slightly wobbly in the center of their broad bed, feeling suddenly very insecure and nervous.

"Well," he said. "That's a good beginning."

His voice moved around her and she noticed with a start that he was circling her, walking on the floor around the bed.

"Now, trust is about yielding control, and so I don't want you to try and touch me or try to discover by any other means what I'm about to do to you. You will have to find out in my time what I have planned for you. And if you want to prove yourself to me, if you want to reassure me that you truly trust me, I don't want any displays of fear either, no flinching, no evasion, no shielding yourself. After all, you should be truly convinced you don't need that with me. Can you promise me that?"

She took a deep breath.

"Hecate," she whispered to herself, and then louder: "I'll try, Lucius."

The mattress dipped and a moment later his voice sounded right by her ear.

"No, no, no," he taunted her. "Trying isn't good enough. If you merely try we might as well remove the blindfold. Do or don't do, Eleanor."

She turned her face in the direction he had last spoken from.

"I promise," she said, hoping her voice sounded more self-assured than she felt.

"Very well. You know that as always I want you to follow your will."

He was on the move again, and now she felt a light tug on the hem of her silk slip. She remained still, but the next second she almost started back as she heard and felt the light fabric tear with the sound of a sharp object being sliced through it. Air cooled her skin where the covering had already been cut and she gasped when she briefly felt something cold and pointed graze her navel. It took all of her willpower not to take a step back. She breathed rapidly, trying not to imagine him wielding a knife while balancing on the unsteady surface of their mattress. She began to feel that this was taking a test for her trust a bit too far.

The scraping, ripping sound had now reached her throat and she felt her ruined dress come apart completely. Two sharp quick tugs cut through her shoulder straps and the silk fluttered down sliding over her back and legs and pooling around her feet. She did not wear anything else and now stood before him completely exposed.

A soft, satisfied chuckle came from somewhere off to her left and the mattress moved as he shifted again. Next she thought she heard something like a mumbled incantation, but he spoke too softly for her to hear the spell clearly. She gasped in surprise as a moment later her feet lost contact with the bed and she seemed to become weightless as she lightly lifted off the ground.

"Lucius!" she exclaimed, instinctively grasping for support.

"Ssshhh," he soothed her, not quite hiding the amusement in his voice. "Remember what you promised. No orientation, no vantage point, no leverage… It's tough, isn't it? But you know I won't let anything happen to you. You trust me, you know you're safe. The less you move, the less you'll float around. At least you are not suspended by your ankles."

She compressed her lips and tried to hold still. Of course he hadn't forgotten how he had got trapped in her ward spell earlier that day. And of course he would not let his humiliating experience slide by without taking revenge, either. Her train of thought was abruptly cut short when she felt the object that had touched her before now laid lightly and coolly against her neck.

"What is that, Lucius?" she asked in alarm, not quite expecting he would hurt her, but still feeling disturbed by the cold anonymity of the touch.

The point moved along her collar bone.

"Can't you guess?" he teased her and dragged the tip in a slow deliberate spiral pattern around her left breast gradually centering on her nipple.

As he reached the cinnamon-colored skin of her aureole she suddenly felt a brief surge of energy and the touch turned to ice. Her nipple stiffened and crinkled in protest and she gasped, barely keeping her arms from crossing protectively over herself.

A soft laugh answered her.

"I see your reactions are strong as ever," he complimented her. "No clue yet?"

The sensation of cold stopped and the movement continued down her stomach, in a lazy swirl around her belly button and then came to a stop a couple of inches below her navel, right on top of a very suggestive chakra point. Lucius could be expected to know his magical anatomy. The previous sensation of cold was replaced by waves of pulsating warmth, and she thought she heard him softly murmur under his breath as a spark of familiar tension ignited deep within her.

At that moment she knew what he was touching her with and what his incantation was. She felt mild surprise that a wizard would know and use a formula that every witch somehow managed to pick up sometime in her teens, then her sensations took over and she began to curve inwards on herself and her incipient climax with a deep moan; and at the very same moment she realized she did not want this.

"No!" she exclaimed straightening with an effort of will, not reaching to stop him, but truly trusting that he would respect her wish. She felt him lift his wand and the spell immediately and bit down on an involuntary gasp of frustration at being so suddenly deprived of her pleasure.

"What's wrong," he asked and she read concern in his words.

"Not like this," she explained. "You can't just turn me on like a television with a remote."

She knew the comparison to muggle technology could be interpreted as a deliberate provocation, but ever since his exile he should know what she meant and she heard no objection from him.

A moment later he touched her again, but this time the warm, dry skin of his palm had replaced the impersonal feel of his wand as he gently laid his hand over her stomach.

"Subscribing to the old principle of the alchemists, are we?" he mocked her gently. "'You must do everything yourself.' Well, I guess I can manage, despite my old age…"

A moment later she felt his body pressing against hers and he whispered a new incantation to her.

"_Levitatus_."

She felt him weightless like her now, holding on to her as they floated in mid-air somewhere above their bed. He kissed her, his hands roaming over her skin that still felt hyper-sensitized and chilled from straining for any kind of sensation before.

"You trusted that I would stop," he said, satisfaction in his words. "You just knew. I heard it in the way you told me."

She responded to his kisses, capturing his lower lip between her teeth for a moment, then running a soothing tongue over it. She understood what he was telling her. She had made her point, interestingly enough not by yielding to him, but by resisting him.

"Yes, Lucius, I knew, without a doubt. Is that proof enough?" she asked.

Suddenly the blindfold didn't matter any more. She playfully reached between them where his erection trailed across her belly showing her that he, too, had made some sacrifices during his previous restraint, and stroked and caressed the silky skin stretched tightly over the heated engorged hardness of his flesh. But his hand almost immediately came to rest over hers and he stopped her.

"Oh no, my dear," he said with a laugh. "If I cannot rely on any help, neither can you. You will have to work for this, just like me. There will be no more shortcuts tonight."

* * *

As she lay curled up to him in the soft light of morning her lips stretched in a reminiscent smile. Most muggle authors who had written science fiction stories about sex in zero gravity hadn't even scratched the surface. To bring someone off without any leverage but by what you could work up by grappling with each other in mid air was precisely what her husband had termed it: Work!

Hard, sweaty, slippery, delicious work that made your muscles ache and that took so excruciatingly, so teasingly long that their final release had been just unbelievably intense. And just mere moments before she had come, Lucius had suddenly reached behind her and had pulled the blindfold from her face. She had looked up, blinking in surprise. A movement off to the side had captured her attention and she had seen an image so erotic she would not get it out of her mind for a long time to come.

The tall, broad silver mirror on the wall by her side had shown her their entwined bodies floating upright in mid air, framed by the black muslin draperies of the four-poster bed, straining against each other, skin glowing with pale luminescence in the flames from the braziers that illuminated the room, gold and copper hair floating like a halo around them, long, muscular limbs sliding and writhing as they both struggled towards their climax. He had his head thrown back, neck bared towards her and she could see the fingers of her hands dig into the taut muscles of his back while he held her hips to him.

She found the physical response to her memories about as strong as to the infamous spell Lucius had tried on her earlier and shifted herself into closer contact with him, deciding that she might want to wake him after all. But just as she lifted her arm that encircled him she heard a rap on the door to their bedroom.

"Master, mistress," called the squeaky voice of a house elf through the thick wood. "Please forgive Nibbs. There are two visitors, a muggle auror and Miss Brannock. They say it is most urgent that they speak with you. It's about a dagger."

Eleanor sighed and felt Lucius stir in her arms.

"Goddess!" he complained, immediately wide awake, as usual, sitting up and shaking back his mussed hair. "What's going on? What time is it?"

"There go my plans for the morning," she mumbled, then added in a louder voice for the elf. "Show them into the green salon, bring them something to eat and drink and ask them to wait for a few minutes, Nibbs. We'll be there."

* * *

It seemed an inauspicious start to the day as a little while later Eleanor felt her husband's hand gently laid against the small of her back as he ushered her into the reception room where a man and a woman waited for them. The man quickly crammed a last piece of toast into his mouth as the green-robed woman got up and walked towards them with a slightly strained looking smile.

"Eleanor, I am so sorry we have to do this," she apologized.

The older witch lifted an eyebrow.

"Do what, Marigold?" she asked.

"Question you and your husband," interrupted the rough voice of the man. He joined them and indicated Lucius Malfoy with a quick jerk of his head. "Detective Jones, Scotland Yard," he introduced himself and held up a sealed plastic bag. "This is the murder weapon. The aurors have identified the provenance. It belongs to the Malfoys."

He placed the bag in her hands and as she looked at the contents she felt sure that she was looking at the very same dagger that Mundungus Fletcher had mentioned to her husband the previous day. Somehow the wizard had known ahead of the investigators. How?

"You know this weapon?" he asked.

Eleanor handed back the bag.

"No, I have not seen it before, but we have nothing to hide," she said with conviction. "We will be happy to answer any questions you may have."

Jones nodded curtly.

"Very well, we'll conduct the interrogation at the Ministry. Mr. Malfoy I trust you have no objection to cooperate with us? Miss Brannock, your portkey if you please."


	10. Ordeal By Fire

**Ordeal by Fire**

_"Now, good my lord,  
__Let there be some more test made of my mettle  
__Before so noble and so great a figure  
__Be stamped upon it."  
__(William Shakespeare. Measure for Measure I, i)_

Lucius Malfoy angrily shoved the silver tip of his cane into the gravel that covered the driveway in front of the manor. It was almost lunch time and they had just reapparated from a most vexing morning spent in two separate interrogation rooms at the Ministry of Magic. Both of them had been interviewed by a mix of aurors and muggle detectives, and eventually a very sour-faced Mr. Jones had given orders for their release.

The wizard had been able to prove that he had sold the dagger with several other objects that had belonged to his father to Mr. Borgin of _Borgin & Burke's_ about two years ago, and that he had absolutely no idea what Mr. Burke had done with the weapon after that. Mundungus' warning had allowed him to be prepared and organized in his answers. Fortunately the aurors had not insisted on getting a full list of what else Lucius had included in that transaction. That information would have proved rather embarrassing and landed them in all sorts of other troubles.

Eleanor had had the presence of mind to tell that Brannock woman about the obliviated copy of Narcissa's book they had got from Sedgewick and had actually found out from her that the dagger had been charmed in a similar manner. She now turned to him and smiled as she laced her arm through his and gently pulled him towards the house.

"You know this morning was not a complete waste of time. It's really got me thinking about our little murder mystery," she said.

"How? We are about as wise as we were before. I just don't know what is more annoying – the general lack of progress or the fact that our aurors are proving to be as clueless as those stupid muggle detectives. I had really thought that magical investigations would be more efficient than the useless bungling of those fools in suits, but apparently that is not the case."

She walked up the steps with him.

"Ah, the superiority of wizarding folk over muggles, yes," she teased him. "But herein lies the interest: our suspect or suspects know how to play both sides. The aurors discovered the dagger had been obliviated. The muggles found out that the murderer was just as careful to leave no fingerprints. Aurors wouldn't even think to check for that sort of thing."

Lucius shrugged his shoulders and turned in the entrance hall to help her out of her cloak. "Yes, Jones explained it to me. But it's no big magical feat, really, and I don't think it shows much muggle cunning in the suspect. I always used to wear gloves during Death Eater raids. You know how disgusting it is to get some filthy muggle blood out from underneath your fingernails…"

Eleanor shuddered briefly.

"No, not really, Lucius, but you have a point. The murderer could be so obsessed with purity of blood he or she wore gloves not to cover their traces, but to protect themselves. I must talk to Marigold about that."

The wizard handed both their cloaks to a house elf and faced his wife with an expression of exasperation.

"Then why don't they reveal themselves to me? They must know from my past that I am in full sympathy with their ideas. I don't want this muggle scum around any more than they do. Why do they go out of their way to frame me? What are they playing at?"

His stomach gave an insistent growl. They hadn't even had breakfast yet, thanks to the annoying rudeness of their interrogators.

"You know what?" said Eleanor. "Why don't you tell the elves to set out a nice breakfast arrangement for us on the patio, and I talk to Eckles in the kitchens to cook us up something good and get Lavinia to sit with us for a bit. I'm sure she missed us this morning. I'll bet you anything after a spot of food and some time with her things will look much brighter."

Lucius found himself smile at the thought of his daughter and nodded.

"I will see you both soon," he said and made his way further into the house. He gave instructions about a late breakfast to Nibbs and had just re-emerged from a bathroom on the ground floor to walk to the gardens when a child's scream alerted him.

'Lavinia!' he thought and sped off in the direction of the sound. As he approached he heard the angry shouts of a female voice that he recognized as his wife's. He had nearly reached the kitchen when he caught some of her words.

"… are you mad? What do you think you were doing? Answer me! Explain yourself!"

He rounded a bend in the corridor and stood in the doorway of the brightly lit kitchen seeing before him in a frozen tableau his wife, wand at the ready, threatening the black-clad figure of the nanny who was inexplicably holding a glowing poker from one of the cooking fires in her right and had apparently just let go of Lavinia's wrist. His small daughter crouched at her feet crying and pressing her left hand against her arm. He didn't even wait for an explanation as he ripped out his wand.

"_Expelliarmus_!" he roared with such force that Maleficia was blasted off her feet, the poker flying from her grip, and she got catapulted halfway across the room making a resounding impact with a rack full of copper pots. Two house elves dashed out of the path of destruction squeaking in alarm and Lucius strode forward until he towered over the half-dazed body of his daughter's nanny that lay sprawling on the floor.

"Speak," he bellowed at the older witch. "Speak or I will _crucio_ you until you do! What are you doing to my child?"

He felt Eleanor step up to his side. She was now holding the still crying Lavinia in her arms and through the haze of his fury he heard her perform an _empathicura_ spell on the little girl. It sufficed as proof for him that Maleficia had indeed hurt his daughter. He leveled his wand at the woman.

"This is your last chance, you bitch! I trusted you," he threatened her. "Very well, _cru-_…"

He saw the eyes of the witch widen in panic and come to rest on his wife.

"Please," she said, her voice reedy with shock and pain. "Please mistress. I will tell you. I will tell you everything, I swear! But I can't tell him. For her sake. Please!"

"What! What's that supposed to mean? Around here I am your master, I demand to know!"

"Mistress, please, listen to me!" pleaded the nanny again, but when Lucius heard his wife answer her voice was cold.

"You burned her, Maleficia. I just healed a burn wound on her that would have had even a grown-up screaming with pain. I have no secrets before my husband, and I suggest you tell us now what you are playing at, or I swear I will walk out of here with our daughter and leave you to his mercy. You've known him and his family long enough to understand what's in store for you."

The witch tried to sit up. Her jaw worked for a moment as if she was desperately trying to think of a reply, then her face grew slack in surrender.

"I tried to test her," she said.

"Test her!" challenged Lucius her angrily. "What kind of test?"

Again it seemed for a moment as if the nanny was trying to resist. The wizard lifted his wand in a renewed threat.

"The two year mark: the time for magical children to first show their abilities," Maleficia eventually volunteered with a sigh. "I watched her as carefully as I could, and I detected nothing. She has a strong will, believe me, but she cannot translate it into magic. Over the last few weeks as I grew desperate I tried to evoke the most basic of responses: magical self-protection. All wizarding children have that, as you know, the instinctive response to threats. I was going to make one last attempt this morning while you were gone. I was again unsuccessful.

I never intended to hurt her, but I was trying desperately to prove to myself that Lavinia isn't a squib. I couldn't."

She sagged back to where she lay on the floor.

"No!" declared Lucius his eyes wide with shock and lowered his wand. "I refuse to believe that. She has Malfoy blood. She has Sartorius blood. Both families have bred true for many generations. She can't be! It's impossible!"

He turned towards his wife and child running a trembling hand across his face, then stretched out his arm towards his daughter, but as Lavinia lifted her tear-streaked face towards her father and let go of her mother's neck to touch him back, he suddenly turned aside and sat down heavily on a wooden cask that stood near him and buried his head in his hands.

"It can't be," he mumbled. "We'll go to St. Mungo's, we'll have the best healers check her. There must be a mistake. It just can't be."

"Is Daddy sad?" asked Lavinia's frightened voice, and Lucius heard a rustle of robes as his wife turned. His head swam.

"No sweetie, Daddy just doesn't like to see anyone hurting you. He'll be all right," Eleanor answered and then addressed the nanny: "Maleficia, I suggest you pack your things and leave here immediately. As far as I am concerned you abused our trust and you endangered the life of our daughter. I do not wish to see you ever again. If you try and come near Lavinia again, I swear to you I will curse you myself."

Lucius still didn't look up as he heard the older witch try to get up in a clatter of pots and pans.

"I would have told you eventually," she said quietly to his wife. "When I was truly sure. You seem to want to care for her no matter what. I love her, and I know what he will do. You mark my words."

Eleanor's response was barely more than a vicious hiss.

"Get out! Before I forget myself!"

Lavinia started to cry again, picking up on her mother's fury, as the heavy limping footsteps of Maleficia Babbit slowly receded and grew quiet.

* * *

"Lavinia, can you be a good girl for me and play over there with the other children and the nurse? I need to talk to your Mummy and Daddy for a bit."

The healer stood up and the little girl looked up at her mother. Eleanor ran a gentle hand over her daughter's pale blond hair.

"It's okay my little owl. Go on. You can ask the nurse for some pens and you can draw a picture if you want.Your fatherand I will take you home, soon"

Obediently Lavinia trundled over to a small play-area where a young nurse in lime-green robes was looking up from supervising two other children and smiled invitingly at her.

The healer asked the Malfoys to sit and looked deeply into the pale and stern face of the father. Somehow his instincts told him that Mr. Malfoy would be more shaken by his preliminary diagnosis than his wife. He hated having this particular conversation with magical parents. It was almost always nearly as bad as having to tell people that a particular spell could not be reversed or a particular poison possessed no antidote. He sighed.

"Well, we've run all the tests we would typically do, plus the detection spells you recommended because of your suspicions."

Lucius Malfoy leant forward, tapping the tip of his cane on the floor between them.

"And? – What have you found?"

"I'm very sorry to say that we currently cannot confirm any magical abilities in your child…"

The blond wizard threw himself back in his chair with a snort of disbelief.

"That's just not possible!" he exclaimed. "There must be a mistake!"

The healer sighed. Denial, always the first reaction of wizards and witches dealing with unwelcome news.

"We did find traces of quite a few obliviation spells…"

This time it was the woman who interrupted him. She sounded angry.

"That's Maleficia, covering up the memories of the pain and fear she put Lavinia through for her crazy tests. Oh, I wish I'd cursed her! I can't believe I trusted her."

The healer swallowed and forged ahead. He really wanted to get this over with. The evil reputation of the Malfoys preceded them, and he felt more than uncomfortable in the presence of the notorious couple.

"We could not establish any other magical interference like suppression spells. Let me confirm again, your suspicions are unfounded: no one is influencing your daughter, cursing her or preventing her from developing magical abilities. She is exhibiting her natural aptitude and abilities that she possesses at this age…"

"Which make her nothing but a squib," said the blond wizard gruffly.

The healer squirmed.

"I would not necessarily call her that," he backtracked. "Remember, all children develop at different rates. You have some walking their first steps while others still crawl and barely manage to pull themselves upright. Some may be talking in full sentences while siblings in the same family at the same age will produce merely meaningless gibberish. We only truly diagnose a squib after age four. She may very well be a late developer."

He saw the witch bite her lips and look over anxiously towards the playpen, where the little girl was playing quite amicably with the other two children. Despite his professional detachment and the reputation of the family he felt sorry for her.

"You see," he tried to explain. "Magic is the expression of will, and your daughter seems otherwise very advanced for her age. She walks well, manipulates objects with her hands successfully and has no problem with expressing herself. She probably does not feel the need to exercise magic, because she can get her environment respond to her in a satisfying manner using non-magical means. It's often the children that are less developed that exhibit the stronger magical traits. If you bring her back in maybe six months we'll have a much better way to determine…"

He flinched when the girl's father suddenly stood up.

"We will not find out anything more here," Lucius Malfoy announced and threw a handful of galleons onto the table at his side. For a moment he leaned in on the healer. "If you breathe a word of this to anyone you will get to find out what the house of Malfoy is truly capable of," he hissed under his breath.

He straightened, pulled his cloak around him, grasped his cane and turned to his wife. "Take her!" He indicated his daughter with a curt jerk of his head. "We're leaving."


	11. The Changeling

**The Changeling**

_"Every intelligent grandmother knows that the fire must not be allowed to go out in a room where there is a child not yet christened; that the water in which the newborn child is washed should not be thrown out; also, that a needle, or some other article of steel must be attached to its diapers. If attention is not paid to these precautions it may happen that the child will be exchanged by the trolls." (Herman Hofberg, Swedish Fairy Tales)_

For the second time that day Lucius and Eleanor apparated at Malfoy Manor. Only his time Eleanor held her daughter in her arms and her mood was quite different from how she had felt after she had come back from the interrogation at the ministry. The time with the aurors had been nothing but a minor annoyance in comparison. Now, however, she had not only discovered that her little girl had been systematically tortured into displaying magical traits over the last few weeks, but she had also been told that her child might have no future as a true witch.

"Bammm!" crowed Lavinia happily and clapped her hands when she saw her familiar surroundings appear around her with a crack. She loved apparating much better than flooing: the whirling motion, ash dust and flames usually made her cry.

Eleanor watched Lucius call two house-elves to them and hand his cloak to Nibbs. Then he turned to her, his face looking grim.

"Give the child to Libby," he said quietly. "We need to talk."

"Lucius, she's just been to the hospital, and she got burned badly this morning – and not obliviated afterwards, I don't think we should leave her alone right…"

He interrupted her objections.

"We need to talk," he insisted, his voice level, but brokering no disagreement. "And I don't want her to be present. Give her to the house elf, Eleanor."

She glared at him in disapproval and set Lavinia on the floor where Libby quickly came up to her and took the little girl's hand.

"Go ahead, Libby," she instructed the elf. "Take her upstairs to her room, check her diapers and see if she needs anything to eat or drink. Play with her for a little. – Lavinia, Mummy will come and see you as soon as she can."

The magical creature nodded and regarded her out of huge phosphorous eyes while Lavinia let go of her robes rather reluctantly to leave with the elf.

Eleanor stood upright and walked towards her husband.

"This better be important, Lucius," she said.

Without another word he turned and walked towards the dining room. As they moved to sit at the long table various portraits of old Malfoy ancestors stirred in their frames on the walls and peered down at them curiously. By now Eleanor's worry and unhappiness had changed to exasperation.

She settled in, folded her hands on the old polished oak wood and looked at the blond wizard who faced her and now briefly closed his eyes as if to compose himself.

"Come on," she urged him. "I want to go back to Lavinia and see how she's doing. What can possibly be so urgent here?"

He finally met her gaze, his grey eyes expressionless.

"We need to talk about the child's future," he said neutrally. "Obviously the diagnosis changes everything."

She shook her head in incomprehension.

"What changes, Lucius? You heard the healer: she's just a late developer at the moment. We'll get another assessment made in a half year's time, when they can get a better idea of what's going on. Right now she doesn't need magic anyway. She's still years away from school."

He stared at her for a moment and then with a sudden movement leaned forward.

"By Azrael, don't play dumb with me, Eleanor! We have a squib in the family! Doesn't that bother you at all?"

Several of the watching portraits recoiled with exclamations of shock and dismay.

"We have brought the worst possible disgrace on our houses. Let's face it: I have fathered and you have born a wastrel."

"What? Lucius…"

He slammed his hand on the table, and she flinched at the interruption.

"Eleanor, we need to act swiftly and decisively to keep this from becoming public knowledge, from dishonoring our family. We need to organize, and we need to see this through together!"

She was still fuming over his description of their daughter as a wastrel and now exploded at him.

"See through what? Are you mad? You're talking about her as if you plan to toss her out with the garbage! Lucius, she is our child, and it's not even proven yet that she's truly a squib. The best I can do is try and forget what you have just said in the last five minutes!"

He swallowed, trying to overcome his own rising frustration and anger at her resistance.

"Eleanor, listen to me. Be reasonable! We have to make her a changeling, as soon as possible, before word gets out."

"A changeling? What are you talking about?"

He sighed, raking his hands through his hair, and for a moment she felt quite shaken at seeing him lose his usual composure like that. The last time he had been this distraught when they had found out that the Death Eaters had abducted Draco. He now reached over the table and grasped her hands for emphasis.

"You must have heard of the muggle myths of changelings, stories that fairies or trolls carry off muggle children and replace them with their own? Of course muggles tell themselves this happens, because the fairies prefer human children to their own brood, and so in their tales the prize is the muggle, the fairy offspring is merely a decoy.

Aside from that error and of course the fact that we are not really dealing with fairies here, there is some truth to those stories. Until about the 1850s, when some laws got changed, when a squib was born the wizarding family would abduct a muggle child, change the appearance of their own monstrosity and swap out the children. The muggle child was of course completely inconsequential and typically got killed and buried instead of the wizarding child. The squib was left with its foster parents to grow up as a muggle.

Now since laws forbid this practice it's only the last and the proudest of the pureblood houses who hold themselves to this tradition. We need to find a muggle home for the girl, a home where they have a female child of her age and rough appearance and make the exchange. We need to do this swiftly and in secret, before anyone suspects anything."

He stared at her, breathing hard, trying to gauge her reaction. She had not interrupted him, simply because she was too stunned to speak.

"Eleanor!" he urged her. "Are you with me on this? Answer me! What's wrong?"

She slowly shook her head.

"I can't even begin to think of everything that is wrong with this. I can't believe I'm sitting here, hearing you say this. You are talking about abandoning Lavinia in cold blood, about giving away your own daughter? On top of that you expect me to help you kill a two-year-old innocent muggle child? You are calling your own flesh and blood a wastrel, a monstrosity, a squib?"

Her voice was rising with every new question. She was clenching her hands into fists, trying to keep herself under control.

"Lucius you can't mean that! You can't mean any of it! Lavinia is our baby!"

He threw himself back in his chair in frustration.

"You can't let your motherly instincts blind you right now," he told her. "You have to think with your head, not with your heart. Look this is probably a one-off accident. We need to get rid of her and forget her. We can have other children, we can try again…"

She stood up so hard the chair behind her dropped to the floor.

"Lavinia is not an accident. She is your child. She is part of you. This has nothing to do with motherly instincts. You should have the same feelings of protectiveness as her father. If you don't then I know only of one monstrosity around here, and that's YOU!"

"Eleanor, listen to me…"

"No, Lucius, you listen to me: if you are really serious about this I will take Lavinia and I will leave, I swear to you! You and your wonderful, illustrious family will not have to bear the burden of being shamed with her. You can sit here and pretend none of this ever happened. I never happened, she never happened, the last nine years never happened. You already have yourself a nice wizarding, pureblood son and heir, your mission in life is fulfilled. Just sit here in your mansion and rot with the rest of the Malfoys in your own damn stuck-up pride!"

She didn't even wait for an answer. Seething with anger she stormed out of the room, dashing tears of rage from her eyes as she made her way to Lavinia's rooms.

Lucius remained at the table, thunderstruck at her outburst. He had anticipated resistance, after all, few mothers would ever willingly abandon a child, but her ultimate reaction stunned him. He had tried to make allowances for her affections, he had not proposed to simply kill the squib, they would actually be giving her a new home. He could not believe she would walk out on him over something like this, not with everything they had together, not after everything they'd been through.

He ignored the family portraits talking among each other in alarm and horror and walked from the room to intercept and stop his wife. He would try and reason with her one last time.

In the entrance hall he heard her hurrying down the stairs that led to the upper part of the house. She was carrying her daughter in her arms and a very distraught house elf was trailing after her. When she saw him, she moved the child over onto her hip and supported her with one arm while her other hand reached for her wand.

"Don't try and stop me," she called to him.

He stepped in her way.

"Or what? Are you going to fight me?" he challenged her in disbelief.

She halted.

"I just want to leave," she said. "Let me go!"

He took a deep breath, feeling anger at her defiance, but trying to give her one last chance to change her mind.

"If you leave, you don't ever have to come back," he threatened her. "No one walks out on me like that, particularly not my own wife!"

He watched her put her wand away and for a moment began to think that he had finally got through to her, that she would agree with him and stay. She didn't look angry and outraged any more and he realized, looking into her face, that she had been crying since she'd stormed out on him.

"Someone has to take care of her," she said quietly. "And you've just made it perfectly clear that it won't be you any more. If she needs to grow up among muggles, so be it. But I will be with her. You can't be a parent merely on the condition that your child meets your expectations. I am not walking out on you Lucius. You are doing this to us. You are abandoning us. If come to your senses, you will know where to find us. It's up to you. It's your choice."

For a moment she paused as if she wanted to say more, but then closed her eyes in concentration. Before he could reply he heard the crack of a disapparition and she vanished before his eyes. He compressed his lips in anger at her defiance, but even though he had a good idea where she had gone to, he refrained from following her. He had his pride, and anyway, once she had calmed down and thought things through he knew she would be back.

She would be back, begging him to forgive her, and then he could be the one who was unreasonable, who would make her plead with him for a change.

"We shall see," he sneered. "I'll have you eating your own words, soon. Just see for yourself what life is like in your little decrepit muggle house, without house-elves, without the attentions of your husband. You'll find that taking care of a two-year-old squib is going to be poor compensation for all that."

He looked down and saw Libby the house-elf stare at him in wide-eyed shock.

"What are you looking at?" he snarled and gave the magical creature a vicious kick. "Get out of my sight!"

Angrily he stormed from the hall and up the stairs towards his study.


	12. Revisiting the Past

**Revisiting the Past**

_"He who cannot revenge himself is weak; he who will not is contemptible." (Italian Proverb)_

Lucius Malfoy woke up to the acute sensation of a mountain troll trying to cleave his skull in half. With a deep groan he lifted his head and realized that he was for some reason sitting at his desk. Before him stood an empty bottle of Scotch, a heavy glass tumbler beside the bottle had been knocked over, and a puddle of whisky had soaked into his shirtsleeve. The smell of the alcohol almost made him gag.

Slowly he pushed himself away from the table dry-heaving as he felt his head pound even worse. Foggily he blinked his eyes. He hadn't had a hangover like this in many years. What in the name of Merlin had happened? He tried to focus and the first memory that came back to him was an image of his wife confronting him in the entrance hall of their home, wand pointing at him and their daughter clinging to her.

With that the whole string of horrible events unfolded in his mind. He might have drunk himself to oblivion but he felt hardly obliviated. In fact, his recollections were painfully sharp and detailed: Maleficia's confession, the conversation with the healer at St. Mungo's, Lavinia stretching out her arms to him.

Groggily he staggered to his feet, trying to wipe that latest image from his thoughts with a muttered curse. With an effort of will he banished any thoughts of his squib daughter and instead concentrated on a memory that actually fueled his anger: his wife of three years had simply walked out on him.

"The second time," he muttered angrily, fighting a bout of dizziness. "Witches! Who needs them?"

Four years ago his first wife had dared to divorce him, now his second wife had left him.

"Bitches!" he spat as he made his way to the potions cabinet in the bathroom to combat the after-effects of his previous excess.

* * *

About an hour later, and after a reasonable breakfast, Lucius began to feel more like himself again. Of course the fact that he was sharing the large dining-room table with no one besides the portraits of his ancestors, who looked down on him in various stages of disapproval only served to remind him of his current predicament: embarrassingly enough he was the father of a squib.

'Just sit here in your mansion and rot with the rest of the Malfoys in your own damn stuck-up pride,' Eleanor had told him just before she had left, and somehow that was exactly how he felt – rotten. He pushed back his plate and angrily tossed his serviette onto the table. By Azrael, he was not going to sit here and mope, not after this whole damn situation was her fault, brought on by her damnSartorius stubborn pig-headedness.

There was one thing he could do, one thing he should have done weeks ago, one thing that would take his mind off this whole miserable situation: to go to 12 Grimmauld Place and finally confront the author of that damnable biography that had caused him so much aggravation already.

He walked from the dining room, snarled at a house-elf to bring him his cloak and briefly checked his appearance in the large serpent-frame mirror in the entrance hall. The last thing he wanted to do was to give Narcissa the faintest indication that his current domestic affairs were in any kind of disarray. He was setting out on a punitive expedition and didn't intend to leave her gloating over him.

After a quick invisibility spell and the short moment of disorientation that accompanied an apparition he found himself standing in the dingy square in front of Narcissa's home. It seemed she had lifted the charms the previous owner, her late cousin Sirius Black, had put on the place and he could step right up to the front door. He hesitated for a moment, then gripped the heavy silver knocker in the shape of a twisted serpent and hit it against the black, battered wood of the door.

Kreacher, the ancient Black family house elf opened and he lifted his arched brows in surprise as he stepped into the front hall and became visible again. From his earlier visits to Grimmauld Place he remembered a rather dark and forbidding place, not the airy, elegant and well-lit environment that surrounded him now. The old heavy serpent candelabra he recalled had been replaced by a small glittering Venetian glass chandelier, the walls were upholstered in pale blue silk and the floor had been recarpeted. Narcissa had also removed the rather tasteless troll-foot umbrella stand that used to stand by the door and most of the old grimy paintings.

Masking his astonishment at the changes Lucius pulled his gloves off and addressed the elf.

"Announce me to your mistress," he commanded the servant.

The elf bowed, cringing at the visitor.

"Master must forgive," he pleaded. "Kreacher is not to disturb the mistress. She has visitors."

Lucius took a step back in outrage at being denied and gave the creature a quick, practiced swipe with his cane.

"How dare you?" he hissed at him. "Have you forgotten who I am? I don't care if you have to punish yourself for disobeying her, but you will take me to her now! Where is she?"

The wretched elf cowered at his feet whimpering in pain and dismay at being torn between two conflicting commands.

"I-in the s-s-salon," he finally stammered and then zoomed off to smack himself straight into the nearest wall. Lucius' lips twitched as the elf impacted with a dull thudding noise and fell back unconscious. It seemed he would have to introduce himself after all.

Without another glace at Kreacher he tossed back his cloak and made his way down the hallway until he heard the sounds of an animated conversation behind a door and recognized the high-pitched laughter of his ex-wife. Apparently Narcissa was enjoying herself. Well, he would take care of that presently.

With a swift move he threw open the door and strode into the room where several witches and wizards looked up in surprise at the intruder. Lucius recognized Rita Skeeter, formerly reporter for the _Daily Prophet_ and now director of _Witch Weekly_, Narcissa's latest lover, the junior editor of _Pentacle Publishing_, a few of her obnoxious socialite girl-friends, and a rather alarmed-looking Mundungus Fletcher who desperately tried to avoid making eye-contact with him.

The blond wizard acknowledged the guests with a brief, arrogant nod and then addressed his ex-wife.

"We need to talk," he announced curtly.

Narcissa leaned back in her chair.

"Well, well, well," she said. "Ladies, gentlemen, I assume you are familiar with my former husband. As you all know from my book, he can be a little – abrupt… And of course he would never dream of apologizing for his rude interruption. As usual I will have to do that for him. So on behalf of my former spouse let me say that I'm deeply sorry for the complete disregard of the basic rules of polite society we are witnessing here."

Lucius snorted at her.

"Well, if you are counting Skeeter and Fletcher among 'polite society' you've sunk deeper than I've expected since your divorce. So why don't you get rid of this gaggle of simpering sycophants, hm?"

"Afraid of witnesses?" she challenged him, her cheeks flushing in anger.

He gave her a grim smile.

"With the reputation you've given me, my dear? No, these days any potential witnesses tend to be afraid of me," he growled. "Need any proof?"

He cast a threatening glance round the room and saw to his satisfaction that Narcissa's current toy-boy was already pushing back his chair, getting ready to leave. The socialite witches whispered nervously among themselves.

Narcissa forced a look of long-suffering on her face, sighed and gave up.

"See, my friends, just as I have written about him… Simply awful! Would you mind very much leaving us alone for a few minutes? As you can plainly perceive it would be for your own safety."

With obvious haste the visitors stood up and thronged out of the room, giving Lucius a wide berth. The last guest quietly closed the door behind them, and Narcissa immediately dropped her polite demeanor.

"I thought you'd never darken my door again. What was that all about, your pathetic affirmations you would never speak to me again? Yeah, in a bat's eye!"

He leaned his cane against the table and took his time sitting down.

"I could curse you instead," he offered. "That way I wouldn't break my promise, if you prefer that."

Narcissa inspected her carefully manicured nails and pretended to yawn.

"Quit playing games, Lucius, it's so old. You know you won't do that, not with so many potential witnesses in the next room. What do you really want? Are you finally fed up with your red-haired slut? How long has it been – nine years? Triple goddess, you must be bored out of your skull by now. At least I allowed myself a bit of variation."

Lucius lifted an eyebrow.

"You may not believe it, but unlike you she knows how to keep a man's interest," he mocked her. "I bet you had to change out your studs, simply because they eventually started falling asleep on top of you. I certainly did in my time…"

He would be damned if he admitted to his ex-wife that he and Eleanor had finally hit a rough spot of their own.

Narcissa compressed her narrow lips. She seemed to be at a loss for a sufficiently vitriolic comeback.

"Well if you came here to insult me you might as well leave again. I'm afraid your barbs have lost their bite for me," she said eventually.

Lucius shrugged.

"You started it," he said. "I've come about this."

He reached into his robes, pulled out Sedgewick's copy of "I Married a Death Eater" and slammed the book on the table between them.

"What in the name of the furies possessed you to do this?" he asked angrily. "And are you now passing round gratis copies behind my back at the Ministry to stir up trouble?"

Narcissa gave a mirthless chuckle.

"Typical!" she said. "As usual you think this is all about you. Me, me, me, Lucius the Magnificent Malfoy, the magical universe revolves around me. Have you ever considered that I couldn't care less about you?"

He stared at her now.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, the idea never even occurred to you! How hilarious!" She seemed truly amused now. "Merlin, you are such an arrogant asshole, aren't you? Look around you. Your return to the wizarding world and acceptance of the divorce left me with nothing," she spat at him accusingly. "There I had to move into this miserable dingy place. I had to take care of myself.

So I sold the one thing I still had of yours that I could cash in on – your reputation. It worked rather well, didn't it? I've been on the _Daily Prophet_ bestseller list since the week of publication. I'm already getting royalties from a French and German edition, Icelandic and Russian to follow.

I don't have to go round making life difficult for you. You'll find a way to do that for yourself, as usual. No, I'm busy making friends, getting Grimmauld Place together, and finally living a full and meaningful life without you. Sorry if my story displeases you, but it's the one thing I ever got out of this marriage that was worth the miserable times I had to spend with you."

She pulled the copy of the book over to her and absentmindedly rubbed at the faint ink stains that still adorned her portrait.

"I heard someone is sticking knives into your new muggle friends," she taunted him. "Shouldn't that worry you more than a simple little book?"

"Not when it makes the rounds among my contacts and serves to make me the prime suspect," Lucius snarled. "And I dare you call them my 'friends.' I'm trying to prevent this place from being overrun by this scum!"

"Yes, Lucius, and as usual you don't mind a bit of murder and mayhem in the process, do you? Still the faithful Death Eater…"

Lucius interrupted her.

"Wait a minute: 'Sticking knives in muggles,' how do you know a muggle was stabbed? That's not even made the news yet."

Narcissa leaned back and made him wait for her answer.

"I have my contacts," she said silkily.

"What contacts?" demanded the blond wizard. "You better tell me…"

"Or what?" she provoked him. "Remember everyone else is just a thin wall away. Anyway, I don't mind telling you: Mundungus Fletcher told me. As a matter of fact, he tried to sell me the dagger a few weeks earlier when I was looking for interesting art objects to furnish the house. I declined. The less I'm reminded of you and your family, the better."

Lucius stared at her in surprise. Narcissa was in deeper with the slimy little thief than he had expected. Something strange was going on here.

The witch pushed back her chair and got up.

"You know, Lucius, this conversation is starting to bore me. I didn't pass any copies of my book to anyone. And anyway, do you really believe I would give away free copies when I'm out to make money? You have so many wizards and witches out there who would pay a small fortune to see you back behind bars, they are probably out there cursing each other over the privilege of doing you in. The only reason they don't come right out and finish you off is that they are terrified of you."

She placed the book back in front of him.

"Because of this, my dear. You should thank me instead of coming round here and insulting me and terrorizing my friends. Now why don't you do us all a favor and get out of my life?"

The wizard picked up the volume and gripped his wand as he prepared to leave. Narcissa's ridiculous claim had sparked an idea. Some people might be truly afraid to attack him openly, for other reasons than merely his reputation, but he had to finish his business with her first.

"You know," he said. "Unlike you, I found this conversation strangely amusing and invigorating. I think I will concern myself with you for a little while longer. In fact, I think you have just become more interesting than you ever were when we were married."

He paused and had the satisfaction of seeing a brief expression of anxiety cross her face.

"I shall enjoy bringing you to your knees. And no, don't worry, not for _that_. Curses are really such a crude means of satisfaction – the demise of the Dark Lord has taught me that. But nothing surpasses the agony and anguish that a good lawsuit can produce. I think it's time I took a stand against this libelous and slanderous piece of drivel you produced. I shall be talking to Marcellus Tethering. And you will soon wish you still had Mr. Greenleaf fucking you, instead of that little useless twerp of a publisher, my dear."

He took an exaggerated look around the room, walked across the soft carpets that adorned the floor and ran an appraising hand over the new textile wall covers.

"I think it's time the Malfoys got themselves a nice little town house in London. Yes, Narcissa, I believe this place will do very well. I'll see you at auction when you have to sell off Grimmauld Place to pay your court fees, your lawyer and my solation."

He had finally hit a nerve.

"You bastard!" she screamed and Lucius saw her reach for her wand. She had never been a Death Eater or had otherwise much used her dueling skills, and so the wizard merely turned with lazy nonchalance as he pointed his wand at her.

"_Oremobsera_!" he drawled and had the satisfaction to see her mouth snap shut.

He sheathed his magical weapon and regarded her with a smirk as she unsuccessfully tried to pull her locked jaws apart making little panicked mewing sounds in the process.

"You know my sweet, during all these years of your nagging, I have so wanted to do this!"

He bowed in mockery and turned to leave.

"Good luck, sweet Narcissa, you will assuredly need it."

* * *

Lucius found himself deep in thought when he walked into his study at Malfoy Manor and pulled out the chair behind his broad oak desk. His visit to Grimmault Place hadn't quite furnished him with the answers he had expected, but it had not been wasted either.

Firstly it had proved to be a welcome distraction from the awful events of the previous day, about which he still tried to think as little as possible.

Secondly it had made him think that perhaps there was something to Narcissa's suspicion that people would not dare to attack him openly. A few people would know that a direct attack was in fact impossible. It would be all those who had witnessed the destruction and dedication of the Mirror of Battle at the manor three years ago. The shards of the mirror still held the power to deflect any act of aggression right back at the initiator. Those in the know would need to find more subtle ways to get at the Malfoys. Those in the know were also only a small and select band of people. They could be investigated.

But first things first: he needed to write Tethering about his plans to sue his ex-wife, then he would shortlist the witnesses. And he would get to the bottom of Mundungus Fletcher's strange and persistent interference in his plans. He had obviously underestimated the man's agenda.

As he reached for a fresh sheet of parchment, his eyes fell on a paper-wrapped parcel that a house elf had placed on the writing surface in front of him. With raised brows he ran his hands over the red wax seal on the twine that held the parcel together.

He untied the box and paused when he saw the contents. Among a padding of rice paper a gorgeous colorful dragon made of cloth and sequins stretched and blinked up at him lazily. Lucius leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He had ordered the dragon to replace the one that had got destroyed in the apparition spell when Libby had left it lying around in the front hall. It seemed an eternity ago.

Slowly he lifted the enchanted toy and absentmindedly ran his fingers over its soft, glittering skin. He had looked forward to seeing Lavinia laugh when she would see his present. She had been quite inconsolable when she had found that her first dragon had "died", and he had promised her he would make it well again.

Now he would never see her smile at him again. He couldn't. Stiffly he got up, still holding the dragon, and without paying attention walked from the room.

When he realized what he was doing he found himself standing in the doorframe of her room. The dragons and unicorns and other magical beings that adorned the walls milled around listlessly staring into empty space. The room seemed cold and empty without Lavinia running forward to meet him with outstretched arms and a delighted cry of "Daddy!"

Lucius' steps were tentative as he slowly walked towards a high-backed chair in the center of the room and heavily sat down in it. The sudden discovery of his daughter's toy had caught him unaware and with his defenses down, and he bit his lips at the sudden, almost visceral pain he felt at her absence. Without meaning to he mouthed her name, then the name of his wife.

"I had no other choice," he said softly, as if he was explaining himself. "Malfoys have never acknowledged a squib. I won't be the first. I can't be the first. You knew that. You should understand."

The immense silence and emptiness of the house seemed to crowd in on him as he sat, feeling the toy dragon move slightly under his hands. 'I will have no one left if you leave,' he had once told Eleanor, and he had been right. Anger rose in him at her abandonment, at her betrayal. How could she, how dared she walk out on him over this? She had promised him at their handfasting: 'strength to do what you must do, when you must do it, and together as one.'

This had required her strength and her loyalty as his wife. He had asked her to stand with him, together as one and see this through, and she had baulked at it. She had left.

The anger felt better than the silence, better than the pain. With sudden resolve he got up, tossed the toy dragon across the room where it landed in Lavinina's empty bed and walked back towards his study. He still needed to owl Tethering. He had better things to do than mope over a mere wastrel of a kid and yet another mistake of a wife. On the way back he clapped his hands.

"Nibbs! Nibbs, you lazy son of a bitch, a bottle of Scotch and a glass in my study, now! And bring me a bird from the owlery!"


	13. Avada Kedavra!

**Avada Kedavra…!**

_"Of joys departed  
__Not to return, how painful the remembrance."  
__(Bidpai Pilpay. The Two Fishermen)_

Eleanor Sartorius sat down on an old, slightly rusty patio chair, leaned her elbows on the table before her and buried her face in her hands. She did not believe a human being could truly feel this wretched without being in any actual physical pain. The warm sunlight of early evening warmed her back and she could smell the summer fragrance of grasses and flowers around her, but inside her she felt nothing but cold, dark despair.

She lifted her head and blinked back tears. A few hours ago she had come this close to obliviating another human being, of destroying her own daughter's memories. With angry, jerky movements she pulled her slender cherry-wood wand from the waistband of her trousers and slammed it on the table. She hated being a witch, she hated having that kind of power, she hated herself for even feeling tempted.

Lavinia, who now lay in her bedroom upstairs finally sleeping under the influence of a _hypnos_ spell had proved inconsolable over their flight from home and the forced separation from her father. Her crying and her pleas to her mother to take her back to Malfoy Manor were driving Eleanor crazy.

Every time Lavinia begged her to let her see Lucius it tore her apart. She wanted nothing more than to go back herself. Actually she despised herself for the extent to which she missed the man, regardless of his despicable behavior, but she knew that only one of them could ever go home. There was no place for little Lavinia at Malfoy Manor any more. If Eleanor wanted to see her husband again, she would have to abandon her child, and that was simply unthinkable.

This afternoon during yet another tantrum – after all – squib or not – Lavinia had inherited a decent amount of Malfoy temper – Eleanor had reached for her wand and had seriously contemplated enchanting her daughter's memory and taking away her recollections of her father. The longing and the pain would stop in the heartbeat it took to incant the obliviation spell. She trembled at the thought of how close she'd come to actually doing it. For a brief, crazy moment she had convinced herself that if her daughter could forget Lucius Malfoy, so could she. The agony would be over, life could go on.

The thought of her own mother had stopped her at the last minute. No one could make choices like that for their children. Her own parents had tried to excise all knowledge of the wizarding world from her life, and it hadn't worked. She had no right to chose for Lavinia. Pain was a part of life, loss was a part of life, and people had to bear it. She had to bear it. If her daughter eventually decided for herself that she wanted to forget about her father and his shameful abandonment of her, that was her right. Until then, it was not her place to deny her child the memories of the pureblood wizard who had fathered her and then rejected her. If she did she was no better than her arrogant Slytherin husband who dealt with any embarrassing unpleasantness by simply banishing it from his life and denying its existence.

She ran her hand over the smooth polished wood of her wand. It had been with her since her first day at Durmstrang, then been locked up by her parents for years after she'd finished school and had gone back to their muggle life, and now she would more or less have to renounce it again if she wanted to give her squib daughter a reasonable upbringing.

She blinked back tears and looked around. The last time she had sat here it had been another summer day, a warm July morning, and Lucius had been with her. They had just beaten back a Death Eater attack, and they had finally confessed their feelings to each other. She vividly recalled his pale, tired face still bearing the traces of the _cruciatus_ torture the followers of the Dark Lord had put him through the night before, and the possessive gleam in his eyes every time he'd regarded her.

The garden of 27 Ivy Crescent, her old home, was not a good place to forget the past. She clenched her fists, feeling anger rise in her.

"You didn't have to do that!" she hissed. "We had everything we ever wanted. You didn't have to throw it all away over your goddamn Malfoy pride! You could have given her a chance. You could have waited. You could have accepted her for my sake!"

She raked her hands through her hair. Thinking like that would eventually drive her crazy. She needed some distraction. She needed to get her own resilience and energy back. Tomorrow would be another day where she'd have to deal with her daughter's unhappiness, deal with it, not lose it and feel tempted yet again to use memory charms.

She got up and looked around at the garden, not the way she remembered it, but the way it appeared now: a sun-drenched thicket of brambles, tall grasses and nettles. Certainly this was not a place to have a small child play. A two-year old could easily get lost without a trace in this suburban jungle. She picked up her wand and stepped down from the patio.

With quick, methodical flicks of her wrist she started to clear the vegetation that had taken over her abandoned garden. Green sparks flew from her wand where weeds wilted and the grass shrunk back to the height of a clipped lawn. A strong scent of sap enveloped her. She began to lose herself in concentration on her simple, mindless task.

She had just leveled her magical tool at a thick clump of thorny blackberry shrubs when a panicked squawk stopped her in her tracks. Instinctively she jerked back her wand and watched the long sinuous branches move and rustle for a moment as the spell energy dissolved some of them. She blinked in surprise and took a step forward when she saw a small squat shape dressed in a blue checkered tea towel.

"Libby? Libby, what are you doing here?"

The house elf threw herself on the ground before her.

"Please, mistress must forgive," she pleaded.

Eleanor crouched down and lifted her up by her towel.

"Come on, Libby, she said gently. "You know you don't have to do that for me… Hecate! What happened to you!"

The elf sported a huge black eye and several rather spectacular cuts and bruises along her arms and legs. The witch compressed her lips in anger.

"Who did this?" she asked, shaking her head. "Did he… Did the master hurt you like that? Merlin! Lucius…"

But Libby shook her head so her large floppy ears wobbled.

"No, mistress," she said. "Master did not hurt Libby. Libby must punish herself for running away. Libby is a very bad house elf!"

Eleanor lifted an eyebrow.

"You ran away? Why?"

Large greenish eyes regarded her.

"Mistress and the little mistress are all alone now. They is needing Libby's help. Master has Nibbs and the other elves looking after him. Libby must come and take care of the rest of the family."

Eleanor sat back on her heels and considered this. Help would be such a relief. Even if she just asked Libby to play with Lavinia on occasion, so she could get a handle on things. She sighed.

"Lucius will be pissed as hell if I keep you," she said.

Libby cowered and trembled, but insisted: "You is family, too. I am sworn to serve all the Malfoys. You is Malfoy, the little mistress is Malfoy."

The witch nodded.

"Stay if you like," she said. "But Lavinia won't be Malfoy for much longer. Her father will not acknowledge her. And somehow I think our marriage is not going to survive this. Then only he will be Malfoy and you must go back, and you must face him."

Huge elf eyes regarded her. She compressed her lips.

"Go on, Libby, keep an eye on Lavinia. She's sleeping upstairs. I'll just finish with the garden. Then we'll take a look at those injuries of yours."

* * *

The atrium at the Ministry of Magic reverberated with shouted spells, forced laughter and noise as a group of witches and wizards were busy clearing an infestation of broggarts from two of the lifts that led to the other levels of the building. Lucius Malfoy winced as he stepped out of the way of a broggart in the shape of a banshee. A _riddikulus_ spell caused it to sport pink muggle jogging pants, a matching cropped tank top and strawberry blonde cornrow braids. Maintenance personnel around him broke out in roars and giggles.

The racket made his head hurt. He really had to take his consumption of Scotch down a notch. Then again, that was easier said then done. For several days now he had steadfastly refused to sleep in his bed, avoiding the feeling of finality that would come with acknowledging the inevitable and sleeping alone. And his desk chair and the settee in the salon were simply not that comfortable.

"Out of my way!" he snarled at a Ministry employee who almost tripped over his feet beating a hasty retreat from a werewolf-shaped broggart.

Eventually he had left the disturbance behind and made his way to his office. It was another one of those tedious meetings with Professor Sedgewick. Fortunately there were no new proposals for cooperation to sabotage. The recent murder really had put a damper on things, particularly since neither the police nor the aurors had got any closer to identifying the perpetrator.

Well, if they could make it short, he would go by _Belisarius & Tethering_ in Knockturn Alley afterwards and talk to his advocatus about the libel lawsuit against Narcissa. The thought cheered him somewhat and he was just considering how much money he should offer the lawyer as an incentive to do some serious damage when he noticed a very familiar and unpleasant scent of tobacco – "Mundungus!" he hissed.

A moment later he had spotted the wizard heading down one of the corridors that led to the cubicles of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad. He sped up and muffled his steps with a quick spell until he had caught up with Fletcher and grabbed a fistful of his scrappy robes in his gloved hand.

"And where might we be heading so quickly, hm!" he threatened the crook, smirking evilly when he heard the other wizard utter a strangled yelp of panicked surprise. He didn't release his grip and used the fanged grip of his cane to push his victim up against the wall of the corridor. "I would suggest you do not call any attention to yourself right now," he said softly. "It would not help you."

Fletcher swallowed noisily and nodded.

"Wha-, what do you want?" he squeaked nervously, his dark eyes darting over the imposing figure of his captor, seeking for a way out of his predicament. He looked guilty as hell to Lucius.

The blond wizard stared at him to keep him in place as he released him and slipped his wand from his cane.

"_Imperturbatus_!" he incanted, and their surroundings seemed to dim almost imperceptibly around them.

"I'd rather make this conversation private," Lucius explained. "Now, let me throw your question right back at you: what do you think I want? You better make your reply worth my while. Or things are going to get nasty. I'm in no mood for your little games today."

Fletcher licked his lips. "The dagger? It's all about the dagger?" he offered hopefully.

Lucius raised an eyebrow.

"My, we are having quite a rush of inspiration today, Mundungus! Yes, let's talk about the dagger. Let's talk about why I had two aurors throwing me out of bed a few days ago, nearly arresting me for being the previous owner of a murder weapon. The last I've seen of the damn thing was Mr. Borgin's rather unwashed hands examining the carving of the handle after he'd paid me fifty galleons for it. What has happened to it since then? And while you're on the topic: what is your business with my former wife?"

The other wizard nodded.

"Well, see, I have a business relationship with Mr. Borgin. He's got stuff he needs shifting that he can't be associated with, I shift it for him. There's a real market for Malfoy memorabilia, ever since you went to prison, but it's hush-hush. No one wants to admit trading in them."

Lucius snorted in disbelief: "Malfoy memorabilia? That's preposterous!"

Fletcher leaned in and the blond wizard recoiled with a grimace of disgust at the smell.

"But not at all. Everyone knows you're a powerful dark wizard, and everybody wants a piece of it. It's power after all. They all hope to pick up an item that will give them a magical edge. Plus it's the thrill of the notorious and forbidden, of course. It's only gotten more profitable since Ms. Black's book."

Lucius waved Fletcher's explanation away impatiently. "Oh please! As if I was selling items of power! Anyway, what happened to the dagger?"

The crook shrugged his shoulders.

"Borgin wanted it shifted. I took it and I started making inquiries and working my contacts. Even asked Ms. Black. She is refurbishing the house at Grimmauld Place. I sold her a couple non-regulation items to take care of all the black magical crud that was infesting the place, so I figured she might like the dagger. She didn't bite. Eventually I sold it to someone else."

"Who!" hissed Lucius.

"Dunno," confessed Fletcher.

"What? How can you sell something and not know to whom?"

"Easy. They wear a hood and mask and pay cash, good cash! You don't ask questions, they cause no trouble. Half my business is run that way, Lucius."

Tamping down on his disgust, the blond wizard gripped Fletcher's robes again and jammed his wand under his nose.

"You have to do better than that. You really have to do better than that!"

"Uh, it was – it was a witch," stammered the other man. "I didn't recognize her. She seemed really nervous."

"Don't be such a cretin, Mundungus, was she young? Old? Any kind of an accent? Scent of a perfume? You must remember something. I will walk out of here with you, and I will curse you until you give me something I can use. You know me well enough for that."

"Y – young, I think, at least her voice was. Just a light southern accent. I, I really don't remember anything else. Please!"

"Merlin, you are helpful," snarled Malfoy. "Can you even find your own ass with two hands? Well, let's move on: why did you think to show me the picture of the weapon right after it was used to kill that muggle?"

Fletcher licked his lips.

"We're both on Fudge's team, right? I got wind of it through your secretary pretty much right after it happened. She's a bit of a gossip, if you know what I mean. Good fun though, if you buy her the occasional firewhisky. Thought I'd help out, let you know, so you'd be prepared when the aurors came poking around, that's all."

Lucius tossed back his hair impatiently. Either Mundungus Fletcher was truly an idiot, or the man was hiding something, but here, in the middle of the Ministry and without recourse to either veritaserum or a decent dose of concentration-enhancing _cruciatus_ he was stuck with the rubbish he had got so far. He clenched his jaws in barely suppressed frustration and considered his next move when a shrill scream pierced the imperturbable charm he had cast.

The blond wizard released his victim and stepped back.

"_Finite incantatem_," he commanded and turned to look for the source of the disturbance. "I am not finished with you, Mundungus," he threatened the other man. "We will resume this conversation, and for your own sakes I hope next time you are better prepared with answers."

"Someone help! Please!" he heard the voice again and this time he recognized it as belonging to his secretary.

"Merlin!" he snarled, left Fletcher standing where he had pushed him against the wall and sped back towards his office: incompetent little bitch. What had she done now?

When he rounded the corridor and ran towards his office he almost collided with an auror. Marigold Brannock skidded to a halt grabbing on to his robes for support as both of them confronted Lucius' secretary. The girl was wringing her hands and pointing behind her, her lips moving noiselessly.

"Well, what is it?" demanded the wizard impatiently. "First you are screeching loudly enough to bring this place crashing down, and now the cat's got your tongue? Speak up!"

"I – in there," the witch finally managed, pointing a trembling finger into the room behind her and talking to Brannock rather than to her boss. "I just arrived, getting ready for Mr. Malfoy's meeting. And he was in there, d – dead!"

"Dead! Who!" exclaimed both the wizard and the auror and Marigold pushed past the secretary into Malfoy's office. A man in a suit lay stretched out on the floor, and it took Lucius just one glance to identify him as Mr. Jones, the muggle detective. The auror had already crouched down beside the corpse.

"_Detego incantatem_," she commanded and gasped in dismay as a green flare detached from the body of the muggle and zoomed back to a position near the door of the office. "Merlin's beard," she gasped. "Someone used _avada_ on him. A few hours ago, too! The trace is not very strong any more."

She stood up, purpose and resolve in her movements.

"Go and get the aurors and alert the Minister," she instructed the secretary. Then she turned to the blond wizard who stood next to her.

"Mr. Malfoy, you understand what this means?"

Lucius drew himself up in anger. "By Azrael, come on! How stupid do you think I am? You don't really believe I…"

She didn't even let him finish.

"Please, you know exactly what this looks like. I am more than willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I need a pretty water-tight alibi from you. Look, if Eleanor can corroborate where you were last night until you left for the Ministry this morning, I'm happy to accept that. We'll hold you until we have spoken to her. Just a formality."


	14. A Conversation at 27 Ivy Crescent

**A Conversation at 27 Ivy Crescent**

_"I usually get my stuff from people who promised somebody else that they would keep it a secret." (Walter Winchell)_

"Look Mommy!" cried a small, insistent voice and Eleanor turned from talking to Libby to look at her daughter who smiled up at her from the living room floor where she had arranged a rather large pile of colorful wooden building blocks into a tall, teetering tower. The witch smiled and crouched down.

"That is very pretty, my little owl," she said admiringly.

"It's Morgana's tower," explained Lavinia proudly. "From Daddy's story."

Eleanor compressed her lips. Of course it had been too much to expect that her little girl would already snap out of her homesickness or her demands for her father, and predictably the next question hit the mark.

"Mommy, when are we going home? I want Daddy to tell me about Morgana!"

Before the witch could think of a reply, however, the distinct crack of an apparition out in the hallway distracted her. Instinct made her reach for her wand, while at the same time her heart leapt in a wild, crazy lurch.

'Lucius!' flashed through her mind in a brief instant of breathless expectation, but the black-clad shape that appeared seconds later in the frame of the living-room door had her hiss in anger as she sprang up ready to fight. At her feet little Lavinia shrunk back in alarm.

"She hurt me!" she cried.

"Maleficia!" the witch snapped, not bothering to keep the fury out of her voice. "I told you if you ever came near her again…"

As a response the woman merely held up her empty hands. She looked older than Eleanor remembered her, less dignified and formidable and somewhat defeated and diminished.

"Curse me if you will," she said tiredly. "I have not come to defy you. I have come to help if you'll let me, if you'll listen to me."

She stood there quietly, a strange patience in her posture, as if she was truly ready to accept what her former mistress decided to do. Eleanor felt her initial anger drain from her as she regarded her visitor. She had been around pureblood ideology long enough by now to know its pressures and the sway it held over the minds of its adherents.

With hindsight the nanny had accurately predicted Lucius' eventual reaction that had come as such a shock to her. She was not ready to forgive Maleficia, she didn't know if she ever could, but she might be able to listen to her. After all, things could hardly get any worse. She considered and finally lowered her wand.

"Give me a minute," she said gruffly, crouching down again and picking up her daughter. Libby followed her as she carried the girl from the living-room and left her in the garden in the care of the elf.

When she returned she found Maleficia sitting upright and straight-backed in one of the reading chairs, regarding her gravely.

"You didn't obliviate her to make her forget the pain, did you?" The nanny shook her head. "What kind of a mother are you?"

Eleanor paused deliberately as she cautiously sat down facing her visitor. She tried to keep her anger from getting the better of her.

"Ashamed of what you did?" she eventually challenged Maleficia. "Upset that you can't hide it any more and that Lavinia now recognizes you as her sadistic tormentor? Well, too bad! I hope she never forgets! I hope she will be smart enough in her life to always recognize you and your ilk for what you are."

The older witch compressed her lips, but decided to pursue another topic.

"You know I had no other choice," she said quietly. "You know yourself now how the master feels about Lavinia. What did he suggest? That you kill her? Or did he want to make her a changeling? Most times the Malfoys just used to kill their squibs. Safer that way, no danger of word getting out, of a squib coming back years later making embarrassing claims."

Eleanor swallowed and nodded. "Changeling," she said softly, not trusting her voice. "How did you know? What is your history with my husband?"

She realized how little she really knew about the nanny.

Maleficia seemed to relax a little.

"That's what I wanted to speak to you about. The master has a secret, a terrible secret that the family has tried to keep quiet for years, but a few of us know. I want you to know, too, because I think it's rightful that the master acknowledges his part in all this. You think I want to harm your daughter, but I want to help her. Don't you know that a healer sometimes has to hurt someone in order to save them?"

Eleanor glared at the witch.

"Spare me your rationalizations! If you want any of my time and attention, I suggest you try to stop reminding me of what you did to my daughter."

She ran her hand across her face.

"So what's so awful in Lucius' past? I already know he was a Death Eater, I've spent years trying to ignore the fact that he tortured and killed numerous muggles and muggle-borns. I can hardly see it getting any worse than that."

Maleficia shook her head in disapproval.

"But mistress," she objected. "The master did the right thing, just like his father before him. He tried to protect us all, who we are, our way of life. It was a crying shame he was arrested and punished for his beliefs, and that the Dark Lord abandoned him after that. Look where we are today! Overrun by mudblood scum!"

"Right," said Eleanor rubbing her temples. She should have known. Of course Maleficia would be a sympathizer of Lord Voldemort. Otherwise one hardly remained in the employ of the Malfoys for so many years.

"Never mind," she conceded tiredly. "What did you want to tell me?"

The nanny cleared her throat.

"I was ten years old when my mother was employed by Master Octavian to take care of the young master. His mother had died during his birth, and Mr. Malfoy needed a witch to look after the baby. We moved into the manor, and I was brought up with the Malfoy girls. Master Octavian graciously consented that I was included in their lessons and as I grew older I helped my mother look after the young master."

The older witch smiled at the reminiscences.

"It was a great honor to live with the family. They made us feel more like relatives than like servants. And I will always be loyal and grateful to them for what they did for my mother and me. Of course I gladly came back when Draco was born, and then Lavinia. I would do anything for the family."

She paused for a moment.

"I never met Mistress Lavinia, Lucius' mother, but a portrait of her hung in Master Octavian's study. She was beautiful as a Veela: piercing blue eyes, long blond hair, just like the young master's and a voice that would stop you dead in your tracks with amazement when she spoke. In the first few months at the house we thought the old master would go mad with grief at her passing. He would lock himself in his study with her picture for days, and the elves had to beg and plead with him to lift the ward spells and accept their food. Sometimes we heard him cry out in the night with such anguish – it was terrifying, more like the howl of a beast than the voice of man.

I think it was her portrait that eventually kept him alive, that persuaded him to remain for the sake of his son. But the other servants said he was a changed man when he finally emerged from his rooms: cold and cruel and dead inside. He never forgave the young master for taking the life of his wife. He was very harsh and strict with young Lucius. We sometimes took the boy to his father's rooms so the portrait of his mother could see him and speak with him.

And then one day, when Lucius was about four years old the master came home in the company of a cloaked and hooded wizard and he was horrible to behold. We all cowered out of his sight, and I believe he would have killed anyone who had dared to stand in his way. The visitor talked with him for an hour, then he left. For two days the master locked himself in his study. Then he had the elves light a large fire at the back of the house, and he himself carried down the portrait of his dead wife and he burned it without ever saying a word. I still remember how she shrieked when the flames consumed her."

Maleficia paused and Eleanor found herself sitting on the edge of her seat. She had heard anecdotes from her husband that had indicated that his childhood had not exactly been a happy one and that his father had treated him cruelly. She also knew that his mother had performed a secret spell to give the family a male heir, a spell that had claimed her own life, but Eleanor had not known that Octavian had blamed Lucius for the death of his mother. A lot of Octavian's heartless behavior towards his son made sense in a rather twisted sort of way now. But if he had loved his wife so madly, why had he burned her image a mere four years after her death?

The nanny regarded her gravely.

"I believe the master would have killed me if he'd known that I heard him talk to the cloaked and hooded wizard. I followed them, because I was fourteen, and I was stupid, and I thought I had a right to know. I've regretted my rashness ever since. In the years after I've learned that sometimes ignorance is a gift.

The visitor was Lord Voldemort, and he was in the process of performing spells on all his followers to guarantee the purity of their bloodlines before he marked them as his, and through his powerful incantations he had found out a secret Mistress Lavinia had carefully kept from her husband all her life. We all knew she was of the noble house of Woodcroft, the old Scottish line of the founders of Hogsmeade that had ancient links to the Veela even, but Lavinia had not been an only child as everyone had always assumed. Her mother had given birth to two girls: Lavinia had inherited her mother's witching abilities, but the other girl – a nameless one who got killed when she was a little over two years old – had been a squib.

When I heard the two men talk I understood that if Mistress Lavinia had told the Master the truth he would not have married her. He would not have taken the risk that a Malfoy might inherit the flaw and be born a squib. He felt betrayed by her. She had lied to him, and his fury was horrible. That's why he burned her picture."

Eleanor shook her head in disbelief.

"That's demented! She was already pureblood. She died to give him an heir! What more could you want? Squibs happen randomly. It shouldn't have made a difference. I can't believe…"

The older witch cut her off with a malicious smile playing round her thin lips.

"Yes, what they want you to believe. The morons at the Ministry! Randomly!" she gave a short, derisive laugh. "Rubbish. Anyone with a head on their shoulders knows that it's in the blood. See, that is why it's jumped a generation. Lucius and his sisters all have magical abilities, but his offspring… I still recall watching young Draco like a hawk. I remember that morning he had a screaming fit, because one of the house elves had tidied away a toy and he made a vase fly half across the room and hit the creature over the head. I was so happy! We had escaped disaster!"

Eleanor considered arguing the point for a moment but then realized it would not get her anywhere.

"Does Lucius know? Did his father tell him eventually?"

Maleficia nodded.

"Yes, he told him when he came of age, because I remember Master Lucius talking to my mother about it. He would confide in her sometimes – things that really upset him. After all she was the closest thing to a mother he'd ever had. I don't think his father had been very gentle about telling him. He was always expressing his disappointment in him, and this was just one more thing where he felt his son had let him down."

"That's rather unfair, don't you think?" said Eleanor.

The nanny shrugged her shoulders.

"The old master and the young master never were on very good terms," she explained. "Still, I believe that's why the master wouldn't believe the truth about little Lavinia's condition. He would have to admit that his father's words were true. He was a failure; he had let the family down. He's let you down, too. Lavinia's lack of magical abilities is not your fault. She has it from the Malfoy side, because of Master Octavian's choice in a wife."

The younger witch felt her ears ring. She couldn't even begin to object to all the things that were wrong with this statement. Eventually she decided against a fruitless argument and concentrated on something else.

"Why are you telling me that? I thought your loyalty lay with the Malfoys. And while you are not exactly a designated secret-keeper for them, shouldn't you protect sensitive information like that?"

Maleficia licked her lips. She looked uncomfortable for a moment.

"Forgive me, I know this is not my place. And I know that it is not the right thing to do, the proper thing to do, but I wish this would not break the family apart. I was not lying when I told you I love Lavinia. I - …" she swallowed nervously, "I think the master should acknowledge her. He is responsible for the way she is.

I – I've always believed in what they told us, that it is better for squibs to die, or to become muggles than to try and survive among magical folk, but I remember when I was waiting for Draco to show himself a wizard, it was the worst three months of my life. Then I watched Lavinia. I wished so badly she would be all right. I think she should have a father. She has done nothing wrong. She is a good girl. She is innocent."

Eleanor barely kept herself from staring at her former employee with her mouth hanging open. She had expected a lot of sentiments from the old, proud woman who sat across from her. Pity for a mere squib was not one of them. But Maleficia had said it. The younger witch took a deep breath.

"Wishing it doesn't make it so," she stated coldly, refusing to give in to her own deepest desires, to rekindle her own hopes. "I think after what you've told me it's even more unlikely that Lucius will accept his child. He's always been preaching about the Malfoys being and deserving the best. If he takes her back, he will have to admit to the exact opposite. He will have to concede that he is flawed, that is family is flawed – in his eyes at least. I honestly don't think that he can do that. It's not in his nature."

The nanny leaned back: "Someone has to reason with him. Someone he might listen to."

Eleanor snorted in mirthless amusement.

"Yeah, and who might that be?" she challenged her visitor. "If any wizard keeps his own council, especially in matters like this it's Lucius. Anyone foolish enough to try and sway him will most likely find themselves on the receiving end of his wand. Will you try and speak to him, after he almost put you under the _cruciatus_ already?"

Maleficia shook her head.

"Draco," she said.

The younger witch lifted a brow. That was a name she had not expected.

"Draco?" she asked in amazement. "Does he know about his dead squib great-aunt?"

"Draco has always been very curious, a very bright boy," said the nanny proudly. "He found out when he snooped around his father's papers."

"Hecate!" breathed Eleanor. "He wasn't about twelve years old at the time, was he?"

Maleficia tilted her head for a moment.

"That sounds about right," she said. "Why?"

The younger witch waved the question away. "Never mind," she said. "Why would Draco argue for Lavinia, for a mere squib, to his father."

The nanny gave Eleanor an appraising and somewhat unfriendly look.

"You don't know your stepson very well," she challenged her. "Do you think just because he is not your flesh and blood he does not care very much about his little sister?"

It was amazing how easily the old woman could put her on the defensive. Her upbringing with the Malfoy clan had given her a distinct advantage.

"Of course not," Eleanor explained. "But he would not risk falling out with his father, whom he fears and respects, over a squib. He would be an ineffective and half-hearted advocate at best."

Maleficia pursed her lips and suddenly looked quite pleased with herself.

"Not when his lover has a very similar situation in her family. If he ever thinks of marrying Miss Pucey, he will have to convince the master of precisely the same thing. Old Mrs. Pucey's brother is a squib."

"That is positively Machiavellian," breathed the red-haired witch. "You do think like a Malfoy."

The nanny gave her a smirk and a small bow.

"Thank you," she said quite seriously and stood up. "I'll owl him, then, shall I?"


	15. Elementary, my dear Watson

**Elementary, my dear Watson…**

_"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, __however improbable__, must be the truth?"__ (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Sign of the Four)_

Eleanor Sartorius stood in the dim hallway of her small London house looking absentmindedly at the marbled glass inset in her front door that had been obscured a moment ago by the black-clad figure of Maleficia Babbitt. She blinked slowly as she tried to order her thoughts in the aftermath of the conversation she had just had with the older witch.

So her former nanny, a dyed-in-the-wool adherent of the late Lord Voldemort, was ready to use her considerable knowledge of ugly and embarrassing Malfoy family secrets to do what? – To help reinstate a little squib girl as the rightful daughter of the current master of Malfoy Manor. That was warped enough to let Eleanor believe that in some rather perverted way Maleficia was truly fond of little Lavinia. She still doubted, though, that Draco would be successful where her own attempts and Lucius' former affection for his daughter had so obviously failed.

A sudden crash and commotion in the living room interrupted her and made her turn back. This seemed to be a day for surprises. As she looked into the room, casting a quick glance out of the bay window that overlooked the garden to check on Libby and her little girl she noticed a big barn owl on the rug in front of her fire-place. The bird had come down through the chimney – apparently with a cart-load of soot in its wake – and now hooted at her angrily trying to shake the mess from its feathers.

"Hey," she challenged the owl. "Don't get it all over the room!"

The messenger flapped its wings ignoring her protest and held out its left leg that had a small scroll of parchment tied to it. Eleanor crouched down and untied the ribbon that held it in place.

As she started to unfurl it, the owl pecked impatiently at the toes of her slippers and hopped towards the patio door. It was obviously not keen to leave the house by the way it had entered it. Absentmindedly the witch opened the door and watched the owl take off with long, lazy flaps of its wings, circle the garden once and fly away in the direction of the city. Then the text of the message captured her attention.

_Dear Eleanor,_

_I've just heard from Mr. Malfoy that you have moved out of the manor, and he has given me your current address, so I'm owling you there and hope my message reaches you. We have had a horrible crisis at the Ministry this morning: Mr. Jones has been killed with an Unforgivable, Lucius is being detained as the prime suspect, and Mr. Weasley is facing a vote of no confidence before the wizengamot and his possible suspension as Minister of Magic. His own son has made the submission!_

_Things are a total chaos: I am desperate and really need your help. I would also suspect that whatever your differences are with your husband – he wouldn't be specific about that, though it might have curried him some favor during the interview with the aurors – you probably don't want to see him charged with a crime that I strongly suspect he didn't commit.._

_Can you come and see me at the Ministry immediately, please? _

_Yours, Marigold_

"Merlin," breathed Eleanor. "You damned fool, Lucius. What have you done now?"

She waved her wand at the heap of ashes on the floor and then stepped out onto the patio calling for Libby. The elf's head poked out over the rim of a sandbox she had conjured up earlier for Lavinia to play in. Eleanor was more than reluctant to leave her daughter alone, especially at a time when the child was still reeling from the loss of her home and half her family, but she did not see another option than to go and visit her former student. Leaving her husband in his current predicament was a thought that despite everything else that had happened she would not even entertain for a moment.

* * *

A little while later Lavinia was safely tucked away in her small bed, yet again under the influence of a strong sleeping spell and in the care of the house elf, and Eleanor had apparated in a narrow cobbled side-street that allowed a clear view of the smashed phone-box that allowed access to the Ministry of Magic. Moments later she had surrendered her wand and strode across the polished dark wood of the Atrium to catch a lift to take her to the second level of the Ministry where the auror headquarters were located. 

She tried to block the vivid memories of making the same trip as a prisoner of Alastor Moody several years earlier, during the time of Lucius' exile. After a brief exchange with a witch at the department entrance she was sent to a conference room where she found Daimon Spofford, several aurors and muggle police officers in animated conversation. She also recognized a wizard in slightly shabby and threadbare robes as Mundungus Fletcher, one of Lucius' guests at the manor a few weeks earlier.

Marigold Brannock excused herself and left a group of people to rush towards her. She was closely followed by a tall, thin, distraught-looking muggle in a rumpled suit who was wearing thick glasses.

"Eleanor," cried the witch. "So glad you could come so quickly! It's all a horrible mess!"

"Oh, is this Mrs. Malfoy?" exclaimed the muggle behind her excitedly rubbing his fingers.

He didn't even wait for the answer but darted forwards and grabbed Eleanor's hand.

"Mrs. Malfoy! I'm Professor Sedgewick, a very good friend of your husband's. Please call me Alfred. This is such a tragedy, and your poor husband falsely accused of this horrific murder! I cannot believe they are even suspecting him. He has been such a wonderful wizard to work with – very eccentric of course, no offense – but so very, very interesting. Who would have thought all this magic really existed, the psi-phenomena, the…"

Eleanor lifted her free hand to stop the breathless flow of Mr. Sedgewick's speech.

"Please," she pleaded with him. "Alfred? I'm here to help. And of course it is to your credit that you believe my husband is innocent."

So this was the rather annoying muggle Lucius had been telling her about. Actually it was quite amazing the man was in such good shape after his weeks of close cooperation and acquaintance with his wizard counterpart. Her husband had obviously exercised superior restraint. She turned to Marigold who was frowning in some irritation at the parapsychologist.

"What's happened?" she asked quickly. "Detective Jones is dead?"

The auror sighed. Her chin-length mouse-brown hair looked scraggly and mussed and she seemed definitely stressed.

"Let's find an empty office and talk," she suggested. "I'll fill you in."

Professor Sedgewick could not be got rid of without obvious rudeness, so a little while later the three of them had settled into a small room that exuded a strong smell of camphor, beeswax and wood-polish. Marigold pulled on the sleeves of her green auror robes as she recounted the events of the morning. She explained how Lucius' secretary had entered the wizard's office to set everything up for a meeting with Professor Sedgewick, and how she had found the body of the muggle detective on the floor right before Lucius' desk; how she had raised the alarm and how the auror and Mr. Malfoy had arrived at his room at almost the same time.

Marigold had detected the Unforgivable that had killed the detective, and her colleagues, who had joined them moments later, had taken Lucius into custody.

"Just as they were leading your husband away for questioning Arthur Weasley arrived. I had sent for him, because he would need to handle muggle relations. Of course Percy Weasley showed up just a minute or so later. After all, the muggle exchange program is part of his department.

Believe it or not, they hadn't even cleared away the body yet, and those two started fighting already. Percy accused his father of being the true cause of Mr. Jones' death. Of course the Minister started yelling back at his son, telling him that Muggle Liaisons are part of his department, and he should stop shifting the responsibility. Then they spent a few minutes arguing who could be blamed for being supportive of Mr. Malfoy as Chief Muggle Liaison, when the man was clearly a bloodthirsty maniac – no offense, Eleanor. And then Percy invoked statute 67!"

"What's statute 67," interjected Mr. Sedgewick curiously.

"A very rarely used vote of no confidence: it means Mr. Weasley has to go before the wizengamot. His son can present his case, the Minister can defend himself, and it will then be voted by all members whether he is fit to continue his term of service, or if he has to step down and re-elections are to be held," explained Marigold. "We have a bloody government crisis on our hands over this!

Anyway, Eleanor, I left them to it and put one of my men in charge to support the muggle police in their investigations. Meanwhile I joined the aurors who were interrogating your husband. I really thought he had nothing to do with it. I mean he'd be capable of it, you know my opinion of him, but he is not stupid. He wouldn't leave such clear clues pointing to himself."

Sedgewick looked as if he had issues with the auror's cool assessment, but she continued without giving him a chance to interrupt.

"So I thought that if he could tell me he'd been home at Malfoy Manor all night – the murder occurred about 11 yesterday evening – and I could check out the story with you to back him up, we'd be in the clear. And then he tells me you moved out a few days ago! You can believe my shock. I tried to get him to tell me the details, but he shut up like a clam. What's been happening with you two?"

Eleanor took a deep breath, feeling the muggle's disapproving glance on her. He obviously thought that no reason in the world could excuse someone for moving out on Mr. Marvelous Malfoy. As far as she was concerned she had no qualms about telling him and Marigold, but she was painfully aware of the fact that the last thing Lucius wanted publicized widely would be his offspring's lack of magical abilities.

"We had a disagreement about Lavinia's upbringing," she finally said, hoping she would get away with the understatement of the century and could keep vague on the details. "He really ticked me off, and I took our daughter and moved into my old house in North Finchley. I wanted to give us both time to cool off and re-examine the situation. Unfortunately that means I honestly can't tell you where he was last night around 11. Still I agree with you: he wouldn't put an Unforgivable on a muggle in his own office and then leave the corpse there for anyone to find."

Marigold nodded.

"Okay. We're both agreed on that. So it wasn't him. The muggle police hasn't found out anything else that would help us. Percy Weasley is recommending suspension of all muggle-wizarding contacts for the time being…"

"Which I strongly oppose!" interrupted the professor.

"…Now what do we do? We are responsible to clear this up and to prevent it from happening again. The muggle ministry has already told us they'd launch their own inquiry if we cannot come up with results, soon."

Eleanor pulled absentmindedly on a strand of her hair.

"As far as I can see the killer or the killers have always been a step ahead of us, playing with us, leaving clues that lead to dead ends. If we continue merely analyzing the crimes after the fact, seeking for giveaways we won't catch them. We need to start controlling the situation. So first off: what do we know so far?"

"Well, I think the murderer knows about muggles, and how our police officers work. They have always been careful not to leave prints," said Sedgewick.

Marigold nodded. "There's a woman involved," she said. "Lucius told me a cloaked and hooded woman bought the weapon used in the first murder from Mundungus Fletcher who sold it on behalf of Mr. Burgin. Fletcher has corroborated this. He said the woman had a high-pitched voice, as if she was fairly young."

"Hm, that won't narrow down the field of suspects too much," said Eleanor. "But what about the motive for murdering those people? What has been the outcome so far?"

"Mr. Malfoy's reputation is in danger. He may be accused of being the murderer," suggested the professor.

"Yes, and Weasley senior may lose his post as Minister of Magic," added Marigold.

"Well, Weasley's suspension may or may not be a desired effect, but I think it's safe to assume that someone definitely has it in for Lucius," said the red-haired witch. "First someone gives Narcissa's biography to the professor to discredit my husband. When that doesn't work, they obtain a weapon that used to be in the possession of the Malfoys to commit murder. When Lucius still is exonerated they kill the next muggle right in his office, and with a curse that was once widely used among the Death Eaters. Which begs the question: why use such a roundabout way? Why not just curse him and be done with it?"

The auror's eyes suddenly grew wide.

"What if they know that they can't," she asked.

"They can't?" asked Sedgewick interestedly. "I just knew it! Does Lucius know some special magic?"

For a moment Marigold hesitated, unsure whether she could trust the muggle, but then she seemed to remember that the man could hardly be expected to obliviate a book or cast an Unforgivable.

"There was an event, about three years ago," she explained. "A magical mirror was consecrated in the presence of several witnesses to protect the entire Malfoy family. Any magic employed to harm any of them directly would be reflected back on the caster magnified several times over. That's dangerous business and would be a powerful deterrent to anyone who knows. At the time the Ministry put a gag order on all the witnesses, because while the mirror was destroyed after a fashion the remnants might still attract thieves who could abuse the magical artifact. Anyone who would have talked about it would have been affected by the Ministry's spells and ended up in St. Mungo's."

She paused. "I think we've got it, Eleanor: we're looking for someone who was at Malfoy Manor to witness the event, who is either female or has a female accomplice, who hates Lucius, knows about but doesn't much like muggles, and who might want to push Minister Weasley out of office. Oh, and they are definitely wizard folk, and not half-bad at magic, either."

She frowned in concentration.

Suddenly Eleanor leaned forward and whistled sharply through her teeth.

"Fudge," she said.

"What!" exclaimed Marigold.

"What's a piece of fudge got to do with it?" asked Sedgewick, looking confused.

The auror glared at him and then looked at her former teacher in disbelief.

"You've got to be joking! Fudge has been in Malfoy's pocket forever. That's why he didn't get reelected: because he and your husband were best buddies, which blinded him to You-Know-Who's rise for so long."

Eleanor gave her a terse smile. She considered briefly how much she should tell Marigold about the secret meeting at Malfoy Manor several weeks ago and decided that she would restrain herself as much as possible. Nine years with Lucius had taught her discretion.

"Precisely. And he has not forgiven him for it. As a matter of fact: Lucius is in the position he is in precisely because of the ex-minister."

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you think the old boys' network has disappeared over night just because we have a Weasley in the top seat now? You can't be that naïve. The old Fudge faction shouldered Lucius into the position as Chief Muggle Liaison – ostensibly for damage control, and to check the new Minister's policies. Then once everybody is aware of the most unsuitable appointment ever – including Alfred here who mysteriously receives a copy of Narcissa's biography – muggles start to die, killed by a Malfoy knife and a classic Death Eater Unforgivable curse.

If Lucius ends up in prison, Weasley gets suspended and re-elections are held, Fudge is in a perfect position to run again. He has also had his revenge on the ex Death-Eater who has cost him his post and abused his trust. Lucius' appointment is seen as Weasley's ill-advised decision, and Fudge is cleared of his former association.

The utter bastard! He knew he couldn't get at Lucius directly, because he was one of the witnesses at the Manor who saw the mirror destroyed. He set us up!"

Marigold still didn't look entirely convinced, but she didn't seem quite as outraged by the suggestion any more.

"Well, he knows a lot about muggles after two terms in office, and he is a capable wizard, but who's the woman, then?" she challenged her mentor. "Even Mundungus Fletcher wouldn't mistake Fudge for a young witch."

Eleanor waved away the objection.

"Pff, there's always Polyjuice potion," she said. "But I think Fletcher's mystery witch was Umbridge. She has a girly voice, and she is fanatically loyal and devoted to the ex-minister."

The auror considered. "Lucius said that Mundungus told him the woman was terribly nervous. That would fit." She paused. "But we have no proof."

The red-haired witch smiled: "No, but we have a chance to trap him. After the first murder Weasly remained in power and Lucius was suspected, but proved his innocence. So the murderer killed again. What if we undo what he has achieved with Jones' murder? He'll have to try a third time. But this time you'll be ready for him."

Marigold shot her a grim look.

"Yeah, undo an invocation of statute 67 and release a murder suspect. Piece of pumpkin pie!" she complained.

Eleanor shrugged her shoulders.

"Hold Lucius for the remainder of 24 hours. Drag your feet and omit to charge him, and _habeas corpus_ will force you to release him. If you're unsure whether you can pull it off, allow him to contact his _advocatus_, Mr. Tethering. He'll get his client out so fast it'll make your head spin. It won't look too competent on your part, I have to admit, but after you've got the actual killer you can figure out how to redeem your professional standing."

Marigold didn't look too thrilled with that.

"You know, I'm really going out on a limb here, based on mere conjecture. This could cost me my career. If I didn't know you were my teacher and my friend… You're not just doing this to get your husband out of a mess, are you?"

The older witch fell silent for a moment, and the auror suspected that she felt insulted by the allegation, but when she answered, there was no annoyance in her voice.

"Listen, Marigold: ultimately this has to be your decision, but you did ask my advice. We both know Lucius didn't do this. And I think we both want to prevent a third attack. I will help you through this, and if the worst happens, tell the truth: blame me. I don't care, because I don't think I'll be hanging around here much once this is over."

Alarmed the auror wanted to ask what that last cryptic comment meant, but Eleanor had already turned to Sedgewick.

"We will need your assistance, too," she said. "You'll have to help us keep Minister Weasley protected."

The professor smiled and nodded eagerly.

"Of course! Anything!" he exclaimed. "I will do everything in my power to help exonerate Lucius."

The witch suppressed the strong urge to tell the muggle how misguided his loyalty to her husband really was and that it would earn him little gratitude from his so-called "friend". Instead she forced herself to smile back.

"Well then, it's time for a crash-course in British wizarding constitutional law. Here's what we'll do…"


	16. Father and Son

**Father and Son **

_"One father is enough to governe one hundred sons, but not a hundred sons one father." (George Herbert)_

"Father! I cannot believe what I'm seeing! You! – You get away from him!"

The voice was indignant and loud and cut through the fog in his mind. Slowly Lucius Malfoy opened his aching, gritty eyes and found himself staring at a cracked and peeling ceiling lit by a few rather dim torches. For a moment the greenish-brown marbled stains of mold flickering above him actually arrested his attention. With the exception of an insistent pounding in his head he felt strangely weightless and unconcerned.

"Merlin! He's bleeding! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The voice again. He should recognize it. That sounded a lot like Draco. But Draco was at Hogwarts. No, wait! Draco was in Prague with his aunt Cornelia. Where was this place anyway?

"Don't worry," answered a dark, silky female voice off to his side. "I just had a taste. Quite revolting, actually, with all that firewhisky he's had. No damage done."

Lucius blinked as he recognized the second speaker.

"Desdemona?" he croaked and tried to move his head. His neck hurt, and as he brought his hand up to the sharp piercing stab of pain he felt wetness on his fingers. That finally jolted him awake. He rolled over, propping himself up on one elbow.

He realized he was lying half-naked among the blood-stained, dirty-white sheets of a narrow, sagging bed, and stretched out alongside him rested a woman in black robes, the chill of her pale skin seeping through the thin threadbare cotton of his blanket.

Raven black hair framed a narrow, aristocratic face of almost unearthly beauty, and her gaping robes revealed glimpses of a perfect, alabaster body. She licked her ruby-red lips invitingly and smiled. Still Lucius' instinctive reaction to his rather tempting companion was to gather his sheets to his chest, scoot away from her and reach for his wand that leant against a rickety chair on the other side of the bed.

"Get away from me, you filth," he rasped at her while he slid his magical weapon from its sheath. In the half-light of the torches he saw the tall, dark-clad form of his son stand in the middle of the room looking aghast at the spectacle before him. Draco was wearing a traveling cloak and had pulled out his wand in protection.

The precaution was well taken, as the woman who appeared to share his bed – he still wasn't sure where exactly that was – happened to be an honest-to-goddess vampire.

The undead creature regarded him with a pout now.

"Lucius, why, I'm deeply hurt! Last night you were singing a different song. Last night when I found you in Knockturn Alley and you begged me to come with you. To come with you and be with you and ease your terrible loneliness."

"Begged you! You! You've got to be crazy! What the hell did you do to me?"

Desdemona, the one-time lover and personal assistant of Gaius Belisarius, Mr. Tethering's senior partner, leaned in revealing long, ivory fangs as she briefly leered at her companion. Then she swung her legs over the side of her bed to now regard the younger Malfoy.

"Men," she said conversationally, tossing back her black long hair and stretching her arms above her head so her robes revealed even more of her naked body underneath. "When they want you they are sweet as fresh blood. When they tire of you they are harsher than sunlight. I am convinced you would be more gallant than your father, young Master Malfoy…"

Lucius caught his son's eyes straying to Desdemona's breasts as he seemed mesmerized by the vampire's pale, slender body.

"Draco!" he growled and had the satisfaction to see the young man snap to attention, flushed with embarrassment.

"She bit you!" his son said accusingly. "You are bleeding all over the place. And what are you doing with her anyway? And why are you here?"

Lucius found that he couldn't quite answer those questions in a satisfactory manner, even to himself, but Desdemona's throaty laugh interrupted him.

"He had just been released from Azkaban, young Master Malfoy. Oh yes, they thought he had killed a muggle, but they couldn't charge him, and Advocatus Tethering got him out. I followed him from the law firm when it got dark and found him at the _Bat's Roost_, drowning his sorrows in firewhisky. Imagine: his faithless wife has left him! He was only to glad to accept my comfort and companionship."

"Rubbish," spluttered the wizard, jabbing her with his wand.

She turned back to him.

"You know," she said lazily, looking at him and finally doing up her robes. "There they go teaching young wizards and witches that crosses and garlic will protect you against our kind. But the true guardian of your virtue was your vice last night, dearest Lucius.

You cannot believe how disgusting your blood tasted after all that swill you downed at the bar. And there I had always expected to have you at my mercy one night and to be able to turn you, have you come and haunt the night with me. How disappointing, when one mouthful of you sent me gagging already. And then when I hoped you could at least satisfy another craving of mine I was foiled again."

She got up and faced Draco.

"Don't worry about your father, little one. He was so drunk he passed out before anything happened. I've had the pleasure of listening to him snoring for the past three hours. It is really quite frightening what age does to you dying ones."

She regarded her former lover wistfully.

"You were such a beast once, Lucius. Pity."

"Get out!" he snarled. Having this woman mock him in front of his son was just too much to bear.

"Or what?" she taunted him.

He sat up straight, not caring for the moment that the sheets fell from his bare chest and pooled in his lap.

"How about an _immobilis_ spell until the sun comes up in a few hours. I'll even open the blinds for you to enjoy the beautiful morning light, sweet!"

When she turned to him again this time her eyes flashed in anger.

"Oh yeah?" she hissed. "Who are you to be so high and mighty? I've sucked on the necks of washed-up homeless wizards here in Knockturn Alley who were in better shape than you were tonight. You've got nothing to be proud of, dying one! Next time I will not be this considerate."

Lucius watched her rise and lower her arms once, decisively. Then a small grey bat fluttered from the empty shell of her robes and disappeared through the gap in the door to the room. The wizard's eyes followed her and then came to rest on his son.

"Draco," he said tentatively. This was not exactly a situation he had wanted to be in when confronting his firstborn. Still he was surprised when his son pocketed his wand and rushed across the room to sit next to him on the bed.

"Let me see that, father," the younger Malfoy demanded, and a moment later his cool fingers moved over his neck. "Shit, she really bit you! You actually let a vampire bite you, father! Merlin! What's wrong with you!"

"Well, it wasn't exactly like I made a conscious choice, son," said Lucius with some exasperation. "Things haven't been going so well these past few days. Anyway, as you can plainly see, she didn't kill me with her bite, so I won't turn and there's nothing to worry about."

Draco had convinced himself that the bite-marks really were not that deep and sat back on the creaking mattress, licking his lips. Overall he seemed to take the situation in his stride; and Lucius actually felt some quiet admiration for the composure of his son.

"Look I got this letter about Lavinia," Draco said, looking slightly nervous now. "So I came looking for you. The manor was empty. All the elves could tell me that you were held at Azkaban, and they were ready to charge you with the murder of a muggle. So I went to see Tethering, who told me you'd been released. Seems they botched it at the Ministry. Typical, I guess!

And then I couldn't find you. I looked everywhere. I was worried. The last anyone had seen you had been at the _Bat's Roost_, drinking with someone from the Ministry called Spofford. Well, they saw you leave with a black-robed woman. Who could have guessed she merely dragged you upstairs, to THIS! Merlin, you could have become one of THEM! "

Lucius winced at the obvious disgust and disapproval of his son. At least he finally knew where he was. Still, finding himself in the middle of a cheap wizarding guest house and being reprimanded for almost getting turned into a vampire wasn't exactly Lucius' idea of interacting with his heir. He focused on the information Draco had given him.

"A letter about the girl?" he asked. "Who wrote to you? Eleanor?"

He felt annoyed that his wife would drag his son into this battle, but the young wizard shook his head.

"No. I haven't heard from her. Nana wrote me."

"Maleficia! Why, that bitch…"

"Father! She said Lavinia was a squib, and that you threw her out, you disowned her as your daughter."

Lucius shrugged his shoulders and looked to the side avoiding the accusatory stare of his son.

"Yes, I did," he confessed. "So?"

"So!" Draco got up from the bed and started pacing the narrow room. "You can't do that," he said.

"Can't," repeated Lucius in surprise at the decisive tone. "How dare you take that attitude with me! Last time I checked I was the head of the family, so I don't think it's up to you to tell me what I can and cannot do, Draco!"

The young wizard halted and looked back at him in shock.

"But she's your daughter. She's my sister. She's part of our family."

"Not if she is not a witch," said Lucius coldly. It was time to stop this discussion once and for all.

His son mulled that over for a moment.

"Other wizarding families have squibs," he answered slowly. "We had that boy in my year: he was nearly a squib, Neville Longbottom. And the Longbottoms are a pureblood family – a respected one, too. Why can't we…"

"Oh, so you are comparing the Malfoys to the Longbottoms now!" asked Lucius heatedly. "I hardly think they are quite in the same league as us. Why, if I recall correctly in the 1800s the Longbottoms were still barely more than mudblood scum!"

Draco's shoulders sagged. He licked his lips as if he wanted to still make his point but seemed somehow reluctant to speak.

"The Puceys go back further, and they have a real squib in their family," he finally confessed. "Melanie says…"

"Melanie – bloody – Pucey! The damn witch you are hell-bent on making my daughter-in-law," exploded the older wizard, suddenly acutely aware of the fact Draco had him at a disadvantage. He was hardly in the position to get out of bed to grab his son by his robes and shake some sense into him.

"I knew there was a reason you had to find me so desperately. I know all about her uncle. Do you think I haven't made it my business to research her family? Why do you think I'm against your relationship with her? We need another bloody squib in the family like you need a toothache!"

Draco briefly ducked his head at his father's outbreak, then the famous Malfoy temper got the better of him.

"You are the right one to pontificate about the Puceys," he spluttered angrily. "Your own aunt was a squib! You are no different than Melanie."

"Shut up!" Lucius' voice cut through Draco's protests like a whip. "I told you never to speak of it, never to mention it if you love your life. Your grandfather would have killed his wife himself if she hadn't been already dead when he found out. I will not repeat his mistake. I will not acknowledge that – that child! Family honor demands…"

This time it was Draco who interrupted.

"Family honor," he sneered, his pale, pointed face reddening. "Look at you talking about family honor: sitting half-drunk and naked in a filthy bed in the cheapest low-life joint in all of Knockturn Alley with a fresh vampire bite on your neck! What a pile of bat-shit! I thought a Malfoy wouldn't want to be seen dead in a hole like this! I'm ashamed of you, father! Merlin! Your precious bloodline made Lavinia the way she is. Or are you blaming Eleanor for her being a squib, hm!"

With his last words he had put his hand into the pocket of his robes and before his father had time to react he had the presence of mind to intone a _portus_ spell and vanish.

Lucius slammed his hands down on the mattress and sent some choice swearwords after him, but it was already too late. Next door someone pounded against the wall.

"Shut the fuck up in there or use an _avada_ already," a rough voice snarled. "People are trying to sleep here!"

Still shaking with rage Lucius lifted up his wand and for a moment contemplated granting his neighbor his wish. Then he threw himself back on the bed and put his hands over his face.

Draco's final accusation had hit the mark, whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not. He could not go on like this. He could not go on waiting, and hoping and hurting. He had to make a decision. He had to take back control of his life. He had never been weak, never had anyone or anything get close enough to him to become vulnerable like that.

"It's time to end this," he murmured to himself. "It's time to decide, once and for all."

He got up and started to dress calmly and methodically ignoring his headache and the lancing pain in his neck. His face had become closed off, and the icy glace of his grey eyes with which he scanned the room one last time before disapparating held no expression of emotion whatsoever.


	17. Setting the Trap

**Setting the Trap**

_I don't want the cheese, I just want out of the trap!" (Spanish Proverb)_

It was six o'clock in the morning on a bright September day that promised to turn rather sunny and hot. At the Ministry of Magic everything was still quiet. A grumpy-looking witch with orange and green striped robes and a hat with a large poppy blossom pattern in matching colors and a long purple feather walked into the office of the Chief of Muggle Liaisons and dragged a large, bristly broom behind her. She gave the ornate name-plate by the door that pronounced Mr. Lucius Malfoy the occupant of the office an angry flick with her fingers causing the "Y" to snap off and dangle upside down.

With a huff she looked around the rather elegantly furnished office, scratched her spiny salt-and-pepper hair and sat the broom upright.

"_Scourgify_!" she commanded and the self-cleaning broom started to sweep obediently.

The witch next pulled a feather duster and a polishing cloth from the voluminous pockets of her robes and set them to work in a similar fashion. With nothing else to do she briefly looked around and then, knowing herself to be alone, she sat down behind Mr. Malfoy's broad desk, put her feet up on the silver-embossed black leather blotter and unfolded the latest copy of the _Daily Prophet_ which a Ministry owl had delivered only minutes earlier. The witch didn't seem to like what she read, because she could be heard muttering unhappily from behind the rustling pages.

To the side of her up on some bookcases a small brown mouse poked its snout past a large, leather-bound volume of the _Wizarding Atlas of the British Isles_ and observed the witch curiously. In the meantime the enchanted duster was making its way up the shelves and almost managed to sweep the little animal off its perch. But the mouse gave one of the ostrich feathers a vicious bite and the duster shook itself angrily and decided to move on.

Finally the cleaning equipment had done its job. The witch carefully re-folded and replaced the newspaper, vanished the collected dust and dirt with a flick of her wand and grabbed her broom.

"Bathrooms next," she growled at her cleaning utensil. "That bloody bastard! One of these days…"

The rest of her angry monologue got lost as she closed the office door behind her with a resounding bang.

Up on the shelves the mouse tapped the folio next to it with its snout.

"Merlin, this is cramped," she squeaked.

"Shhh!" answered the Atlas. "At least you're an _animagus_. You're in luck. How much fun do you think I have pretending to be a book? And keep your nose back, Marigold. We don't want any one to see you and try to kill or vanish you. I'm sure things will be moving soon."

The mouse curled up next to the book, her whiskers twitching unhappily.

"I hope they get on with it," she sighed. "I hope this works."

* * *

They had to wait for another hour or so, when the door to the office opened again, and Mr. Malfoy's current secretary poked her head in. 

"Maintenance," she sighed. "Getting sloppier and sloppier. It's really high time Percy had a word with them."

She lifted the broken "Y" and fixed it back in place with a spell. For twenty minutes the young witch bustled around the room straightening files, laying out documents and getting everything ready for the day. She seemed still shaken from the murder she had discovered only two days ago, and quite a few folios and folders hit the floor as they fell from her nervous hands.

On the other hand, mused the _Wizarding Atlas of the British Isles_ up on the shelf, Lucius Malfoy didn't exactly inspire self-confidence in his employees, and she might just be jittery at the prospect of her boss coming back into the office after his release. He hadn't been exactly friendly to her last time she had heard him speak to her in the fireplace of Malfoy Manor.

Finally the secretary left and Eleanor felt her _animagus_ companion stir restlessly once again.

"Where's Sedgewick," she squeaked quietly.

"It's not even seven-thirty," rustled the book. "He'll be there."

"And the ward-spells?"

"All set. All the triggers are in place. We'll be fine. Now stop turning in circles and scratching me with your feet and quit dangling your tail over the rim of the shelf. Someone will see you!"

"I hate being in my _animagus_ form," complained the mouse. 'The fur itches, my mouth feels funny, and I detest that tail. I get it trapped everywhere. Plus, I don't even like mice!"

The book sighed, with a sound of creaking leather.

"Look, be glad you have an _animagus_ form like this as an auror. Imagine you'd turn into a hippogriff or a lion. Any pretense at stealth would be right out of the window! It would be useless for your job… – Sshh! I think I can hear someone coming."

And really, as the morning progressed the Ministry had come alive with sounds. Ministry employees had begun their work day, and the two witches had heard steps echoing along the hallway outside the office and voices of people wishing each other good morning and calling to each other. The steps they could hear now definitely sounded louder and soon stopped in the secretary's ante-room just outside the office.

"Good morning Miss Langley," said a man's voice.

"Sedgewick! I hope the old fool can pull it off," murmured Marigold and started to absent-mindedly nibble at the thick leather back of her companion. It was on occasion difficult to control the natural animal instincts of an _animagus_ form.

"Come off it!" snapped the atlas.

"– but Mr. Malfoy isn't here yet," complained the secretary as she followed the lanky form of her muggle visitor into the office wringing her hands. "In fact I don't even know if he will be coming in today at all, what with all the accusations and the recent arrest."

"Oh, please," said the parapsychologist, waving away her protest and peering at her over his glasses. "We all know he's innocent. I'm sure he'll be here – to show everyone how little the latest events have affected him. In fact he made an appointment for me to study here and meet with him later so I can ask him questions about wizarding matters and about magic."

The young witch regarded him rather doubtingly, but seemed to resign herself.

"Well, if Mr. Malfoy said so, then I guess it's all right," she admitted with some hesitation. "But it seems so unlike him: giving a muggle access like this, and have someone like yourself sit in his room and read his books and touch his stuff."

"Look," said Sedgewick. "I already told the witch at reception and she said it was all right." For a moment a look of cunning came into his face. "You wouldn't like me to report to Mr. Malfoy that you made things difficult for me, would you?"

The secretary swallowed and nearly dropped a quill she was holding.

"Of – of c-course not!" she stammered hastily. "I – I'll bring you some tea, sir. Please make yourself at home."

With that she rushed from the room. Marigold performed a little tap-dance up on the shelf and watched as the professor waved at them, gave them an exaggerated wink and sat down behind Lucius Malfoy's heavy desk. He obviously enjoyed himself.

Eleanor slightly shuffled her position.

"_Incipio incantates_," she rustled, activating the prepared wards.

Sedgewick looked at her expectantly and then a little disappointed as he could not discern any observable magical effects.

"Are you sure this works?" asked the mouse. "I've never seen this before."

"It'll work all right," explained the atlas. "I devised the original wards for _Gringott's_ and you know how exacting their standards are. Anyone who approaches Sedgewick with intent to harm him will now get trapped. I assure you. The effect will be quite spectacular. Relax, you'll enjoy it."

At that moment Miss Langley entered the room with a tray that held a silver tea-pot adorned with the Malfoy serpent crest, a cup, creamer and sugar bowl made from black egg-shell-thin porcelain and a silver tea sieve, all neatly arranged on a little lacquer tray.

Sedgewick rubbed his hands and looked at the elegant crockery with some admiration.

"Too kind, Miss Langley. I don't think I'll need anything else."

The secretary nodded.

"No problem," she assured him, still looking as if she was afraid he might report her to her boss. "Then I'll be gone for a few minutes, if you don't mind. Just a quick errand."

She left the room and as soon as she had closed the door behind her, the parapsychologist got up, a predatory gleam in his eyes, and approached the book-shelves.

"I've so wanted to have a look at a magical library," he told the mouse who had come out of hiding again and peered down at him. "So far Mr. Malfoy has thought that would be a bad idea, though. What do you think I should start with?"

"Try Finnegan Fernsworth: _Principia Magica_," whispered the atlas, giving a sideways wobble to indicate a fat, slightly tattered-looking volume to the right of her. "He's thorough, lucid and quite systematic – something that's not always the case with books on wizardry."

Avidly Sedgewick grabbed the heavy book from the shelf and retired back behind the desk. He poured himself a cup of tea and was soon completely engrossed in his reading matter, exclaiming in surprise now and then, and soon digging around in the desk drawers to locate a raven feather quill and some parchment to make notes.

Time passed slowly. Marigold found it harder and harder to keep still.

"Why hasn't the secretary come back yet?" she asked. "It's been over an hour now..."

Just then they heard steps outside the office again. The footfall seemed heavier than Miss Langley's, however. The auror stiffened and carefully hid in the shadows between the tall folios. Sedgewick seemed so captivated by his book he only looked up with a start when the door to the office suddenly flew open.

A wizard dressed in a billowing cloak made from silver-embroidered green crushed velvet walked into the room. Long white-blond hair framed his arrogant, pale face and streamed down his back. He paused briefly to close the office door behind him and then faced the professor with a sneer.

Sedgewick had risen half-way from his seat to greet his friend, but the wizard raised a black-gloved hand and waved him back into the chair with an imperious gesture.

"Please, Alfred, you might as well stay where you are," he acidly informed his muggle counterpart. "I see you've already helped yourself to my tea, my desk and my books. But then, that's what 'friends' are for, isn't it?"

"Lucius, you don't understand," said the parapsychologist. "We're trying…"

"Merlin!" hissed Marigold up on her shelf. "He's going to blow it. He's going to blab about the plan. Idiotic muggle…"

The wizard interrupted both of them with a snort.

"I understand well enough," he spat. "It's not sufficient that you are coming crawling in here at the behest of the Minister, no – now you are ready to take over completely, aren't you! Well, my friend, I'm going to stop this nonsense once and for all. I'll have that incompetent, muggle-loving idiot Weasley thrown out of office. This time I won't fail."

Sedgewick recoiled in fear at the hatred directed at him, his mouth agape in shocked and hurt surprise.

"B – but Lucius…" he stammered.

"Don't you dare Lucius me! You little piece of muggle scum, I'll…" and with that he pulled a wand from his robes and advanced on the professor.

Just then several things happened all at once: the door to the office flew open and Miss Langley poked her head in, gasping in shock at the scene she was witnessing. Lucius Malfoy leveled his wand and began to intone the killing spell and Eleanor's ward spell activated, grabbing the wizard by his ankles and sweeping him up towards the ceiling as he hollered in surprise. The wand clattered to the ground.

Marigold Brannock jumped from the shelves and retransformed as soon as she hit the ground. As she advanced on the man who had been caught in their trap, Eleanor also reverted to her human form, hopping down from the book case before her increasing size would get her stuck. Miss Langley watched them in incomprehension, her mouth hanging open. Sedgewick had slumped back in his chair, shaking his head with a pained look on his face.

"How could he do that?" he murmured aghast. "I was his friend. How could he hate me so?"

Marigold meanwhile stood underneath the suspended figure of Lucius Malfoy with her hands on her hips. She looked up at the red-faced spluttering man above her and then over to her mentor.

"Of all the people," she said to Eleanor. "Who would have thought it was him after all?"


	18. Guilty as Charged

**Guilty as Charged**

_"The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children." (Clarence Darrow)_

The red-haired witch slowly approached their captured victim and looked up at him. Marigold noted a small derisive smirk on her face.

"Come on now, Lucius," she goaded the wizard. "You can get yourself out of this. You heard me incant the counterspell before – use it."

"How dare you," growled her husband down from the ceiling. "You are my wife! Let me down this instant!"

Now Eleanor actually laughed.

"I doubt that very much, my darling husband," she taunted him. "In fact, I believe you couldn't even tell me what happened the last time you made love to me. It was quite extraordinary, if you recall."

"It's rather inappropriate to discuss that in public, isn't it, Eleanor," objected the wizard and coughed. He looked increasingly uncomfortable in his bat-like position.

Eleanor turned away from him and towards the auror and the professor who had finally risen from behind the desk and approached them.

"Of course this isn't Lucius Malfoy at all," she announced. "First off, my husband wouldn't be seen dead in anything as vulgar and flashy as crushed green velvet. Next, I am missing Lucius' signature serpent cane and – …"

She bent down and lifted a black wand from the floor, wet the tip of her finger on her tongue and rubbed against the wood to reveal a reddish grain beneath.

"This is not even his wand. Lucius' is ebony with a core of Veela-hair, not mahogany. And his is about two inches longer."

She turned back to the wizard.

"Rather clever, though. It could have fooled most people. Now the question is – who are you really? You can either tell us now, and I'll let you down, or we'll simply keep you hanging around until the polyjuice potion wears off. Your choice."

"You, you mean this isn't Lucius at all!" gasped Sedgewick, staring up at the blond man hanging suspended above him.

"Of course not," assured him Eleanor, slightly rolling her eyes.

The parapsychologist recovered almost immediately and a broad grin spread across his face: "I knew Lucius, the real Lucius, would never say such terrible, hateful things to me," he beamed.

"You have no idea, do you, you idiotic muggle fool?" growled the wizard from the ceiling.

The professor looked up at him with interest now.

"What an extraordinary magical feat!" he exclaimed. "Who would have thought – …"

Just then Eleanor whirled around and drew her wand.

"Oh, no you won't!" she said. "_Immobilis_!"

Everyone followed the direction of her spell and they saw the motionless figure of Miss Langley, who had been in the process of leaving the room and attempting to close the door behind her.

"What are you doing?" cried Auror Brannock accusingly. "You can't just hex people!"

"So arrest me, or advise her to sue me," said Eleanor with a shrug of her shoulders. "Isn't it rather convenient that Sedgewick appears, she excuses herself in order to walk off to summon our suspect and then contrives to burst into the room at just the right moment to 'discover' Lucius Malfoy casting an Unforgivable? I am quite positive she would have allowed herself to be stunned afterwards to give the murderer a clean escape.

Of course 'Lucius' would have managed to then draw the attention of several Ministry employees on the way out, so all witnesses could have corroborated her story of murder and mayhem. It would have held up even under veritaserum if she answered carefully. After all, she really did see Mr. Malfoy."

Marigold looked at her, but the wizard objected.

"She has nothing to do with this, you hear me! Let her go!" he called down to them, struggling against the magical bonds that kept him. "She's innocent!"

Eleanor turned back to him.

"So, are you going to tell us who you are, or do we have to wait another –," she glanced at a timepiece on the wall, "– forty minutes or so?"

Determined silence was her answer. She sighed.

"Fine, have it your way… Marigold, I believe it is time to alert the Minister and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. And perhaps you would care to arrest Miss Langley as a suspect. I do not find the fact that a potential murderer protests her innocence particularly reassuring. Oh, you may also want to summon the real Lucius Malfoy. After all, I believe this concerns him, too."

* * *

A little while later the office of the Chief Muggle Liaison was bursting with people. Aurors, Unspeakables, Ministry officials and a host of merely curious witches and wizards squeezed into the room, gawping at the suspended would-be assassin of Professor Alfred Sedgewick, whose morosely guarded identity still remained a mystery. The bespectacled muggle seemed thrilled to be at the center of attention and was happy to relate his adventure to anyone who cared to ask. 

"Please, let's have some quiet in here! Can you make some space, please," called a voice from the door through the din of babbling voices. "Merlin! Did _everybody_ get here before me?"

Heads turned and everyone could see Arthur Weasley, the Minister of Magic, push his way into the crowd. He seemed rather cross and out-of-breath.

"What's going on here," he demanded, and an Unspeakable stepped forward with an air of importance to brief him.

The Minister appeared truly crestfallen when it transpired that the man with long blond hair dangling from the ceiling was actually not the real Mr. Malfoy. It was obvious that Arthur Weasley would have longed for nothing more than the ultimate and irrefutable proof that his old arch enemy was actually the guilty party.

"Well, where's my son then, the useless lay-about?" he eventually exclaimed testily. "This is his department and his responsibility. He should be taking care of this. At the very least he should be here."

People around him shrugged their shoulders until one young auror suddenly pointed at the ceiling with a gasp. "I, I think I know where he is," he exclaimed.

Everyone followed his outstretched hand and calls of amazement filled the office as the man suspended below the ceiling now sported an unruly crop of shocking red curls and the unmistakable freckled features of a Weasley. Even Eleanor couldn't banish a look of surprise as Marigold nudged her in the ribs.

"Fudge, eh?" the auror teased her old teacher.

"Merlin," the red-haired witch muttered under her breath. "Who would have thought? I had the whole family down as muggle-lovers, but I guess the fact that the female accomplice wasn't Umbridge after all should have tipped me off. Of course both Weasleys also knew about the Mirror of Battle through their Ministry work."

A moment later Weasly senior had stepped up to her. His face was ashen and expressionless.

"I would appreciate it if you released my son from the wards," he told her tonelessly.

The witch bowed curtly and turned to Percy Weasley.

"_Dissolvincula_," she murmured, intentionally omitting the floating spell, so the younger Weasley crashed rather unceremoniously to the ground taking an Unspeakable and another witch with him in a tangle of robes.

Arthur stepped over to them, located his son, grabbed him unceremoniously by the collar of his flashy green cloak and pulled him upright. Then he back-handed him across the face with a resounding smack.

"How could you?" he asked him. "You've just broken your poor mother's heart! What on earth have we done? Where have we gone wrong to deserve a son like you!"

Percy Weasley shook himself to clear his head, the blow had been rather forceful and stared at his father with an expression of intense hatred.

"You, and this whole good-for-nothing, poor family!" he spluttered. "How I detest all of you! I'm ashamed to be a Weasley! I was the only one who ever tried to be someone, who ever tried to make something of themselves. I worked so hard, I tried so hard. You and Mum never believed in me. You loved George and Fred and Ron who knew nothing better than to make fun of me. You were happy in your filth and your poverty and your stupid admiration of muggles and that old fool Dumbledore. You behaved as if you were ashamed to be wizards, as if you actually wanted to be muggles!

You'd rather put up with everyone stepping all over you than ever asserting yourselves. You've never had any ambition, nothing! Everything I've achieved I've got for myself, I've got in spite of you. Other wizards have money, or influence or a name to help them on in life. I started with nothing. And then when you got to be Minister, all I got from you was criticism. You wanted me to fail…"

His voice broke. "All I wanted was your respect," he choked. "But when I was loyal to my boss, when I took my career seriously, all you did was sneer and laugh at me and tell me I was wrong."

Arthur stared at his son as if he had been the one who had been struck a blow.

"You're wrong, Percy," he said softly. "Your mother and I love you very much. You must believe…"

"Yeah, there you go!" shouted the younger wizard. "Telling me I'm wrong – AGAIN! You can take it and you can stuff it! I hate you all!"

"Excuse me," drawled a commanding voice from the door and caused everyone's attention to shift from the heated exchange between father and son to the entrance of the office, where a tall, blond wizard in a black, fur-lined cloak impatiently tapped the tip of his cane on the floor.

"While I am flattered at this sudden outburst of popularity I'd rather not have a Weasley family spat in my rooms and a Ministry mob take over my office. Someone care to explain?" He cast a quick glance at the motionless form of Miss Langly, whom two aurors had propped up against the wall. "And who in their infinite wisdom saw fit to petrify my secretary?"

Eleanor, who hadn't seen her husband for some days found herself rather taken aback by what she could observe. Lucius looked paler than usual, thinner and somewhat tired. His eyes seemed slightly reddened and puffy and had dirty-yellowish shadows beneath them.

While his attire was elegant and flawless as usual her experienced eyes noticed that his robes seemed to hang more loosely on his frame, he carried himself with a slight stoop instead of his usual straight-backed arrogance, and his blond hair had lost some of its gloss and could have done with a wash as well. The white knotted neck-scarf that he had pulled all the way up to his chin leeched even more color from his face and actually made him look slightly sickly.

Eleanor found herself reluctant to approach him and inclined her head towards her companion.

"Why don't you tell him, Marigold?" she asked.

The auror lifted an eyebrow but didn't comment.

"We just caught the murderer of all those muggles, Mr. Malfoy" she told the wizard and stepped forward. "Your secretary may be a possible accomplice."

"Hm," Lucius tapped Miss Langley's ankle with the tip of one of his boots. "Who would have thought," he sneered. "I thought she was completely useless myself. So who's the brains behind the operation?"

"Percy Weasley," explained the auror. "He drank polyjuice potion to make himself look like you and tried to kill Professor Sedgewick with an Unforgivable, with Miss Langley as a 'witness' who could then implicate you beyond any reasonable doubt."

Lucius Malfoy looked around until he had spotted the two Weasleys.

"Out of my way," he snarled at a few people who stood before him and strutted over to the Minister of Magic.

"Your own son," he gloated as he had reached Weasley senior. "Well, well, well, Arthur! This is a proud moment for you: disgraced by your own offspring. You must be happy that your long years of education have finally paid off. You always were one to advocate befouling your ancestors and besmirching your good name. I guess you have finally succeeded."

"Why you dirty, arrogant, hypocritical…" hissed Arthur Weasley pulling his wand from his robes.

Lucius stepped back drawing his own wand. He didn't look amused anymore.

"Ah, not reverting to fisticuffs this time, I see," he sneered. "Finally done with filthy muggle habits, are we? Fine, have it your way. But remember you're fighting a former Death Eater."

Several aurors and Unspeakables immediately intervened, however, and eventually separated the two wizards and convinced them to put away their wands. Lucius threw back his robes and stepped back with a last look of disgust at the two Weasleys. As he looked around at the crowd his glance fell briefly on his wife, but while Eleanor noticed a short flicker in his eyes he did not acknowledge her. Instead he addressed the assembled wizards and witches.

"Well, I think you've seen all there is to see here. Perhaps you would now kindly vacate the premises and take that scum," he indicated Percy Weasly with his chin, "and his bitch," he glanced over to Miss Langely, "away with you and subject them to the punishment you so wanted to mete out to me these past few weeks."

The glance that hit the assembled witnesses out of icy grey eyes was as intimidating and compelling as ever, and slowly and muttering among themselves people started to leave. Aurors put binding spells on Percy Weasley and Miss Langley, then released her from her _immobilis_ spell and led both prisoners from the room.

* * *

Eventually only the Minister, Professor Sedgewick, Auror Brannock and Eleanor remained. Lucius regarded them briefly, then shrugged his shoulders. 

"Suit yourselves," he said curtly pulling himself up a chair and sitting down. "I'm afraid my secretary cannot bring tea. She seems temporarily indisposed."

All the time the Sedgewick had looked as if he was bursting at the seams. Now he stepped up to the wizard and grabbed his hand to shake it vigorously. Lucius looked slightly nauseated.

"I just knew it," exclaimed the lanky muggle. "I was the only one who believed in your innocence, who never wavered. And today I was vindicated, along with you. In fact I helped this good witch and your own wife to prove your innocence."

Lucius raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah well, one can't have too many pieces of good news in one day now, can one?" he said dismissively, then he turned to Minister Weasley. "Do you actually plan to persist with this nonsense now that you must recognize that even your own son thinks this misguided policy is the worst idea in the entire history of wizardry?"

The older Weasley's shoulders sagged. Finding his own son turning against him and his beloved muggles seemed to have knocked the spirit out of him.

"I guess we really aren't ready," he sighed. "I know it's the right way forward, but we're still stuck in the bloody Dark Ages. You and your scum friends have won this round, Lucius. But you know what: you won't be able to hold history back forever. One day soon muggles and wizards will live together as brothers."

Lucius regarded him with amusement.

"Yet another fool who believes in destiny," he smirked. "Don't you know history is what you make it? If we have enough power of will and our magic is strong enough we can wipe the muggles off the face of this earth. Watch us try, Arthur, watch us try…

In the meantime I gather the Department for Muggle Liaisons is closed and I can resign from this distasteful position and leave these disgusting premises, yes?"

Sedgewick had followed the exchange with increasing incomprehension

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Wipe muggles off the face of the earth? Close the Department? Lucius, what is the meaning of this?"

The blond wizard turned to him with a smile that would have done a shark proud.

"My dear Alfred," he said softly, his voice caressing every word. "Our relationship, like the relationships of all muggles and wizarding folk has been fraught with misunderstandings. It is just the way things are. But it pains me to think that we might part without these misunderstandings cleared up. In fact, friends should always be entirely open with each other. I think, Alfred, it is time I showed you another interesting piece of magic, it is time I revealed to you the truth about myself. "

He got up and faced his muggle counterpart. Sedgewick, who stood before him shuffled his feet and looked slightly uncomfortable, but remained where he was.

"Just relax," the wizard said, pulling one of his gloves back on, that he had removed earlier. "No harm will come to you."

He closed his gloved hand around the muggle's chin in a firm, but not painful grip.

"Look into my eyes, please, if you will," he instructed Sedgewick with oily politeness and then the stare of his own grey eyes hardened.

For a moment Sedgewick's expression grew slack, then his eyes widened in horror.

"Noooo!" he moaned, but he was unable to break the contact, and Lucius' hand now held him with an iron grip.

Weasley moved to interfere, but Eleanor stepped forward and restrained him.

"If you value this muggle's safety you will let this happen," she hissed at him. "Otherwise the stupid fool will keep coming back like a kicked dog to his master until Lucius will lose his temper for sure."

A moment later the blond wizard abruptly released Sedgewick's chin. The man slowly sank to his knees with his face buried in his hands and started sobbing. Lucius looked down at him as if he was some skinned dead mouse his owl had brought in and dropped on his expensive carpet, then turned on his heel, sat back down and took off his glove.

"Do we understand each other, muggle!" he said, his voice sharp with loathing.

Sedgewick looked up, trembling, it was hard to say whether with shock, sorrow or anger.

"You, - you are not human," he whispered. "You are worse than an animal. My God! You and your kind shouldn't walk the earth in daylight."

Lucius threw back his head with a bellow of laughter.

"That's right, muggle! That's the spirit! You want to kill me now, don't you? Wizards and witches deserve to be tortured and burned. Now take your disgusting presence away from here, before I do more than just show you some pretty pictures in your head! And tell the rest of your muggle scum to keep away from us, too."

Sedgewick looked around accusingly at the other witches and wizards, who had witnessed the exchange in stony silence.

"We're not all like that," said the Minister, stretching out his hand and taking a tentative step forward, but the muggle recoiled from him in horror.

"What do I know?" he spluttered. "You might be! I'll advise the Prime Minister to immediately cease all contact. Oh my God! Oh my dear God…" and with that he stumbled from the room.

As soon as he was out of sight Weasley lunged forward at the blond wizard.

"Do you understand what damage you have done here," he shouted. "You have undone years of diligent work, you have thrown us back by centuries! Merlin, I'll…"

Lucius didn't flinch, but remained seated in a position of lazy nonchalance and waved his hand in front of him dismissively.

"Please, Arthur," he drawled. "We'd never be rid of the idiot otherwise. I have learned a few things from this exchange program, too. For example I've discovered that nothing is more tenacious than a muggle who has got it into their head you'll be the topic of their research and an academic publication. Like gnomes to gold, I tell you. He would have driven me – how shall I put it delicately – to 'extremes' eventually."

Weasley looked like he would have liked nothing better than to choke the arrogance right out of his opponent, but with the man's wife and an auror as witnesses he restricted himself.

"Just get out of here," he muttered angrily. "After all you've just effectively eliminated your own job. I really hope I will have nothing to do with you for the foreseeable future. You're a pitiful, arrogant snob with nothing but your precious family and bloodline."

Lucius got up with an air of finality about him.

"Suits me. I'll have this place cleared by my elves before noon. Now if you would kindly excuse me, Minister, I'm sure your son could do with you calling him a lawyer – I've heard Advocatus Tethering is very good, though maybe out of the reach of your purse.

And I'd like you to leave, too, please, Miss Brannock, though I do thank you for your tireless efforts on my behalf over the past few days. You will find the Malfoys never forget an insult and never ignore a favor. For now, however, I believe I have a few matters to discuss in private with my wife."


	19. Parting Words

**Parting Words**

_"Love: A temporary insanity curable either by marriage or by removal of the influences under which the disorder was incurred. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than the patient." (Ambrose Bierce)_

The auror closed the office door behind her with a last glance back at her former teacher and Eleanor gave her a reassuring nod. Then the red-haired witch turned to her husband.

"What did you show him?" she asked, keeping her expression neutral.

Lucius shrugged his shoulders.

"Death Eater raid on a mudblood family," he said dismissively. "It's been a few years. Nothing much, really. After all he's such a wimp, he might have thrown up on me otherwise."

He stepped up to her, his face suddenly intense and focused.

"Look I won't waste time discussing some stupid muggle, Eleanor. I am glad to see that the old Malfoy loyalty is still strong in you. You got me out of this, didn't you? You set the trap for young Weasley. You found the murderer for me and solved our puzzle."

He gripped her arms, stared at her, daring her to contradict him.

She slowly shook her head.

"You think I'd abandon you?" she asked him incredulously. "You think I'd let them punish you for something you didn't do? In the name of Hecate, why? You're my husband, Lucius. I'd rather die than throw you to the wolves."

He released her, turned away from her.

"You left me," he said, his voice thick with emotion and unspoken accusations. "That's a strange way of showing me you're my wife."

Eleanor paused, biting her lips. It made her vulnerable, but he deserved honesty, he deserved the truth.

"You're questioning my love for you?" she asked.

He whirled around, his eyes blazing.

"How can you ask me that?" he snarled at her, his pain now evident. "You walk out on me, you threaten to fight me, you break your handfasting vows. And now you have the guts to ask me whether I doubt you? Whatever gave you that idea?"

She swallowed.

"Lucius, this is hurting me more than I can even begin to tell you. I miss you like I never thought I'd miss another human being. I miss you like I'd miss a part of myself. I'm terrified of myself. There are days when I'm not even sure I can make this, I can survive this. Of course I love you. Love has never been the problem."

He stared at her, and she felt the ghost of an attempt at legilimency brush against her thoughts. The lack of discipline in him that made him try showed her only too clearly how desperately he wanted to believe her. Calmly she met the grey eyes looking at her, slightly lowered her head without breaking contact and surrendered her mind.

When he released her, she thought she saw a strange glint in his tired eyes.

"Then come back to me," he whispered. "If this is the truth, be with me. Be where you want to be. Be where I want you to be."

For a moment his plea almost swayed her. She could hear the love and longing in his voice, and his own intolerable loneliness. She buried her face in her hands to regain her composure.

"With her," she eventually managed to say. "With Lavinia."

She blinked away tears and as she looked at him, she thought for the flicker of a second that he was ready to give in, but then his lips compressed and his face hardened. The moment had passed.

"No," he said. "You and I are merely a link in a chain that stretches to either side of us. You have just witnessed what happens to a family who disrespects their own honor, their own bloodline. The son will turn against his own father. Everything is lost. When everything is taken into account your happiness and mine are less than the good of the house."

She nodded slowly to show him that she understood.

"I have a daughter," she said. "She is a link in our chain, or at least in my chain. If we break that chain, if we abandon our own flesh and blood we lose the right to call ourselves a family. We dishonor our duties as parents. If a house is built on the destiny of its murdered and abandoned children, it has no honor. You are right: when everything is taken into account your happiness and mine is less than the good of the house."

He lifted his hands for a moment, let them fall to his sides again.

"Then you won't come back. Your vows to me are meaningless."

"On the contrary, Lucius," she replied heatedly. "I take them very seriously. But when I made a vow to family, I counted her in, regardless of her abilities. I didn't think that I would get to pick and chose. My vow was not just to you, but to everyone, past and future."

She paused.

"I know you won't ever see her as family," she added soberly. "I just witnessed what you did to Sedgewick, how you treated him. To you a muggle is less than a house elf, probably even less than some animals and magical creatures. I shouldn't have tried to ignore that all those years. It was my fault. I guess everyone gets to confront their lies and self-deceptions eventually."

The man facing her looked at her neutrally. The openness they had shared a few moments ago seemed irrevocably lost.

"I always told you to follow your will," he said quietly. "For many years now it has led you ever closer to me, and now it leads you away. I'm not going to change my advice to you, merely because your actions displease me. It would stand against everything I believe as a wizard. You must do what you feel is right, as must I."

For a moment they remained in silence. Eleanor suddenly became aware of the fact that she might not see him ever again when they parted in a little while and she left this place. The insight almost took her breath away. She was about to lose a man from her life who had more or less _been_ her life from the first day she had decided to live as a witch.

"What will you do now?" she asked, every word feeling like grit and ashes in her mouth.

He regarded her.

"I have nothing to hold me here," he said calmly as if he was discussing the weather. "My duties at the Ministry are over and I have little taste for now to continue with Fudge's silly cabal to get him re-elected. The house is very empty without you and without – …" he cut himself short with an obvious effort of will. "…without you. Draco's business in Prague could do with some experienced oversight. He's proved himself apt, but many decisions require more than just business sense and intelligence. I might join him for a few months, visit my sister and her family and put my mind to other things.

Tethering is under orders to sue Narcissa over her book, but he can manage on his own. I should come back when the case goes before the wizengamot so I can testify. We can discuss dissolving our handfasting when I'm back. That might help us to do this amicably and without much emotional involvement. And you?"

Her head swam. How could he talk about a divorce with this maddeningly calm voice?

"I – I'm not sure," she finally answered, trying to match his seeming lack of involvement. "I guess I'll be at my old place for now. I will even have to decide if I will continue to live as a witch. If Lavinia needs to live as a muggle girl, then it wouldn't be good if her mother was at home casting spells and advising aurors on curses and monsters. To tell you the truth, I hadn't thought this far ahead."

He nodded.

"You could go back to the Manor when I'm gone, collect your things. I trust you and won't ward the place against you. Keep Libby. I know she's gone and joined you. You have better use for her than I have right now. I'll transfer her bonds to you after the divorce, so she can continue to serve your family."

They looked at each other. Suddenly there seemed nothing more to say. Eleanor felt as if she could explode any second with everything she felt inside. But all she could think of doing was either to howl her misery to the four winds or to descend into mundane trivia and meaningless platitudes.

She decided she owed it to her remaining Malfoy honor to do neither.

"I think everything is said, then, Lucius," she remarked. "Communications will reach me at my house in London for now. I don't know what else to tell you."

For a moment she seemed unable to go on. No matter, things had to be brought to a close before she embarrassed herself and him.

"Farewell, Lucius." Her voice softened. "Take care of yourself. You look tired and exhausted."

As she forced herself to turn and leave, he suddenly took a step forward and grasped her forearms. He leaned in on her, and she smelt the faint odor of firewhisky on his breath.

"I could tell you that I love you, Eleanor. I could tell you that I have never loved anyone like I have loved you, but where would that get us? What good would it do either of us? Go, follow your will. Be – be a good mother to her."

She staggered under the sudden impact of his words, and before she could help herself she told him what he had told her so long ago: "I love you, Lucius, I always will."

With that she ran from the room without looking back.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy took an impulsive step forward as if he meant to follow her for a moment, then he stilled and watched her as she left, until she had rounded a corner in the corridor outside the ante-room. When she was gone he pulled his wand from his cane and methodically sealed his office. His face carefully expressionless he placed his wand and his cane on his desk and slowly sat down in one of the chairs, taking care to smooth his robes beneath him. 

He paused for a second and then buried his face in his hands and simply started to cry. His body shook under the unfamiliar sobs that he had not allowed himself since he had been fourteen years old and his father had caught him crying. When his punishment for his weakness had been over he had sworn to himself that nothing and nobody would ever wring tears from him again.

He had been mistaken, and now he almost wished his father were still around to curse him and punish him. Anything would hurt less than this horrible feeling of loss and emptiness.


	20. Going Home

**Going Home**

_"The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of." (Blaise Pascal)_

September, which had started sunny and warm, was ending in fog and rain. When Eleanor peered into her garden through the weeping windows of her living room she could spot the first leaves turning pale yellow.

Lavinia missed the care-free summer days she had spent playing with her mother and with Libby in the small sandbox next to the patio. Her questions about her father and her demands to go home became more infrequent, but some spark of joy and liveliness seemed to have been extinguished in her. She spent a lot of time sleeping and moping and her mood changed abruptly from temper-tantrums to periods of lethargy.

Eleanor still hadn't made up her mind about the future of her family. She found herself in some strange limbo of paralyzed inactivity. She delayed her visit to Malfoy Manor to collect her things, dreading the finality of the gesture and fearing to encounter the emptiness of the huge house without Lucius.

Severus Snape had visited twice, but was busy now that the new school year had started. Lavinia had been overjoyed to see him, and he had taken his time to play with her and cheer her up, but in private he had used harsh words with regards to Lucius and his choices, and Eleanor found it difficult not to lose her temper with him. As before he had suggested that she return to Durmstrang, but again that would mean making a decision, and she simply did not have the energy.

The only thing that had roused her somewhat had been the aftermath of the "muggle scandal" as the _Daily Prophet_ had termed it. Eleanor had done all she could to help Marigold who had received recommendations from several Unspeakables and fromthe Department of Magical Law Enforcement and had got a promotion. She had also appeared twice before the wizengamot as an important witness for the prosecution.

The case had revealed that Miss Langley had been Percy Weasley's lover and had purchased the dagger for him and tried to serve as an instrumental eye-witness in implicating Mr. Malfoy. Professor Sedgewick, though invited with many apologies by Arthur Weasly, had summarily declined to attend any hearings or to ever have anything else to do with wizards or with magic.

Eventually Percy Weasley had been sentenced to twenty years in Azkaban prison, a very mild sentence that had been chosen out of deference to Arthur and Molly Weasley, who had made a passionate plea on behalf of their son. He still refused to see or talk to his parents, however. Miss Langley had got three years for her role as an accomplice. Eleanor thought she recognized Albus Dumbledore's handwriting in the moderation of the verdict.

She interrupted her musings as she lightly got up from the chair that stood by the side of Lavinia's bed, cast one last glance at the sleeping form of her little daughter and softly tip-toed out of the room. She gently closed the door behind her and with practiced steps avoided a particularly creaky floorboard on the landing before making her way downstairs.

Even though it was just past noon, and Lavinia was merely taking a lunchtime nap, the gloomy weather made the interior of the house look as if it were already early evening. Eleanor sighed as she turned towards the kitchen. The weather seemed a perfect mirror of her mood. She would clear away the dishes from their simple meal and then spend some time in the living-room with a book on obscure charms that Severus had left her during his last visit, until it was time to wake her daughter. As she began stacking the plates and bowls Libby came running into the room.

"Mistress mustn't," she protested appalled. "This is elf work!"

The witch picked up the crockery and set it down in the sink.

"Libby, I have something else for you to do," she said, unwilling to get into an argument with the house-elf. "I don't feel like going out today, so I want you to take care of the shopping."

Libby hopped onto the kitchen table, nodding eagerly.

"Yes, what is Mistress needing?"

Eleanor pulled a folded up slip of paper and a small purse from a pocket of her robes and held it out.

"Just some milk, bread, eggs, some butter, and a few other oddments. It's all on here. Take your time, and get yourself a little treat, too."

The house-elf eagerly scanned the shopping list and did a little skip.

"Libby will be back, soon!"

She snapped her large, bony fingers and disapparated.

Eleanor ran some water in the sink, added some soap and then gave her dish brush a brief tap with her wand to set it to scrubbing. Just as she was wiping her hands on a tea towel she heard the shrill ring of the doorbell cut through the quiet of the house. Angrily she slammed her wand down by the side of the sink and walked back into the hallway. The damn racket would wake Lavinia, and she had spent half an hour to get her to sleep just then.

As she looked through the marbled glass in her front door she could distinguish a tall, grey-clad shape waiting outside at the top of the steps. She frowned. Certainly she wasn't expecting anyone. In fact, with the exception of the Hogwarts potions master no one had visited her since the conclusion of the trial.

With an unfriendly rebuke forming on her lips she yanked open the door and recoiled in stunned surprise.

In front of her stood none other than Lucius Malfoy. She merely opened and closed her mouth and stared at him. He was the one person she had not expected to see at her old house ever again.

The only thing more startling even than his sudden appearance was his attire. Her proud wizarding husband was wearing a pair of black corduroy pants, black shoes and a grey knee-long wool coat. While there was nothing overtly remarkable about the clothes, she recognized every single piece as a muggle garment she had bought for him during his brief exile over three years ago. Why he was wearing the stuff was beyond her, as was the fact that he had obviously left his cane with his wand behind and instead allowed the light drizzle to soak him. He had tied up his long blond hair at the back, but a few strands had come lose and now hung limply into his face with small droplets of rain collecting at their tips.

They looked at each other wordlessly, neither apparently willing to make the first move. The gaze of his grey eyes was steady, but unreadable. She noticed the glint of rain-water trapped in his lashes. Every detail of his presence seared herself into her perception, but Eleanor found herself unable to speak as she regarded him. And so they faced each other across the abyss of her door-mat for what seemed like a small eternity.

A gust of wind suddenly splashed her with rain, and she finally shook herself and broke the spell.

"Merlin, you're drenched, Lucius!" she said simply. "Come in."

He took a tentative step forward into the protection of the house, but stopped again.

"What is it?" she asked, starting to feel anxious. He seemed in a mood unlike any she had ever seen.

He slowly blinked as if he needed to collect himself.

"I want you back," he said simply. And for a moment she heard the ghost of his usual arrogance in his gravelly voice. Exasperated and uncomprehending she shook her head.

"Well, you can't always have what you want," she snapped at him. "We've been over this! Why do you have to come here? Do you think it's easy for me to see you like this? Why are you doing this to us? Why are you doing this to me!"

He lowered his eyes.

"No," he said softly. "I need you back. – Both of you, you and her." He hesitated as if it cost him an enormous effort to say the name. "Lavinia. I need you both back. I need us to be a family again. I can't do this any more. I don't care what she is: squib, muggle, witch. It's all my fault anyway. I made her who she is."

His voice dropped until it had lowered to a whisper. She barely caught his last few words.

"Lucius," she said, stretching out her hand without a second thought and touching his arm. "It's no one's fault..." She interrupted herself. "It's not a fault to begin with," she corrected herself.

"You don't understand," he answered her fiercely. "I – my mother's sister, my father, - we…" he broke off, struggling with the shame of the terrible secret he was about to confess.

She smiled, stepping closer. "I know, Lucius," she said gently. "Maleficia told me. I know everything."

He looked away from her, unable to meet her eyes, and suddenly she understood the meaning of his strange appearance. He had undertaken this journey to her as a penance, as an exercise in humiliation. He had divested himself of everything that made him a wizard and set him aside from the muggles he hated, his elegant robes, the simple spell that would have kept the rain water off him, his gloves that he wore as a barrier between himself and the low-born scum around him, even his cane that held his wand. He had been prepared to finally confront everything he professed to detest above all else.

Loathing was a powerful emotion, thought Eleanor. We loathe what we secretly know ourselves to be, what we recognize as our own innermost shadow.

"Look at me, Lucius," she told him softly. "Do you think it makes the slightest bit of a difference to me? Do you believe I think any less of you? Do you think I love you less, knowing what I know?"

She felt the long muscles in his arms tighten as he clenched his hands into fists. For a moment he hesitated, then he lifted his eyes to hers. His gaze was steady.

"I should have known," he said simply. He took a deep breath. "Then you will come back? _Both_ of you?" he asked. "After – after what I did?"

Eleanor regarded the bedraggled wizard standing before her, who looked strangely on edge now, as if he truly seemed unsure about her answer, and the full impact of what he was asking her suddenly hit her. He would never say he was sorry, would never apologize, but she saw in his hesitation that he did not expect to be simply forgiven. She felt herself choking up.

"Of course we will," she sobbed, flinging herself forward and finally bridging the last of the distance between them.

His arms closed about her, but at that very moment a small shrill voice behind her shouted "DADDY!"

She twisted around, and the next moment her heart stopped: through the gloom of the hallway she saw Lavinia stand at the top of the stairs. With her pale hair and her small white night-gown she seemed to possess an inner luminescence. The door-bell must have wakened her, and she had come to investigate the noise. Now she had recognized her father and rushed forwards to get to him.

"Lavinia, careful! NO!"

Eleanor gasped in shock as she saw her daughter lose her footing on the steep stairs and fall forward as she ran. Lucius had come without his wand, and her own lay uselessly by the sink in the kitchen. They could do nothing. Her husband pushed her out of the way and hurled himself forwards in a futile attempt to catch the falling girl, but it was already too late and the witch screamed as she could almost hear the sickening crack of the small body of her child impacting with unyielding wood.

Time seemed to stand still as the white-clad figure hovered in mid-air, suspended in the arc of her fall.

Eleanor blinked: time did stand still!

Lucius had actually managed to reach Lavinia, and his hands had closed around her as he pulled her towards him. She had never hit the ground. The wizard turned back to her.

"Did you…?" he asked her white-faced as he held his daughter in his arms.

Eleanor approached in a daze. "No. No, did you…?"

He shook his head, and they both looked at the little girl who had buried her face in her father's wet hair and was sobbing and hugging him fiercely. Lucius stroked her to get her attention.

"Lavinia," he called her softly. "Lavinia, look at me. Daddy has to ask you something. It's very important."

Eventually the little girl stirred, sniffed and lifted her tear-streaked face to look at him.

"Lavinia, what did you just do?" her father asked her. "What just happened?"

She rubbed a hand across her nose.

"Lala fly," she announced matter-of-factly. "Just like Draco. Just like Uncle Sev's bubbles."

Lucius stared at her. "You flew?" He turned to his wife. "But that's impossible," he said.

"Is not!" answered Lavinia with a pout, and a moment later she had simply wriggled out of her father's arms and was slowly but clearly rising towards the ceiling.

A parent's instinct taking over the wizard quickly grabbed her nightshirt and pulled her back.

"Hey, careful!" he cried, and then thought better of it, shrugged and let her go again. "I'll be damned," he exclaimed and looked up to watch her as she floated above him.

Suddenly he started to laugh, softly, as if to himself at first, then louder, until he finally held his sides, his head thrown back.

"She's a witch!" he hollered, wiping his eyes. "By Azrael, she's a bloody witch!"

He suddenly grabbed his protesting wife for a rather graceless, impromptu jig in the middle of their hallway while Lavinia looked down at them, joining in her father's laugher with an infectious giggle of her own. She stretched out her arms.

"Lala fly!" she crowed.

"Merlin, yes!" shouted Lucius, still laughing. "Lala fly!"

It took them all a while to calm down. Finally Lucius held his daughter in his arms again and faced his wife in the dusky, chilly hallway. Eleanor had to admit that they had probably made for an unlikely sight: a bedraggled looking man with long blond hair in rain-soaked muggle clothes madly dancing in a circle with a witch in rather rumpled house robes and a little girl in a white night dress floating a good two feet above their heads – all of them crying and laughing at the top of their lungs. It would have scandalized any passing muggles to no end. She shook her head, grinning as broadly as everyone else.

A gust of wind swept in from the open front door and made her look down the hallway. When she turned back towards her husband, he had settled Lavinia in the crook of his left arm and now laid his right arm around her and drew her to him.

"Shouldn't we all go home now?" he asked her gently.

She smiled at him, returning the embrace and moving against him.

"We already are, Lucius," she answered him. "We already are."

* * *

Well, Lucius and Eleanor returned to Malfoy Manor with their daughter and Libby the house elf, where they lived happily ever after (Libby less so, of course, as being Mr. Malfoy's house elf remained overall a rather hazardous and thankless job). 

Over the following years the Malfoys ended up havinganother girl and a boy, and Lucius turned into a complete basket case around each of their second birthdays. Both developed into very capable little witches and wizards, however. Lavinia eventually attended Hogwarts where the sorting hat put her in Slytherin, much to the satisfaction of her father. She made seeker on the Slytherin house team, and since then the house-cup has been firmly in the grip of the Serpents.

Maleficia was never re-employed by the Malfoy family, but continues to correspond with Draco on occasion. Despite his father's misgivings Draco eventually got engaged to Melanie Pucey. Sobered by his own experiences Lucius managed to finally get over himself and actually treated his future daughter-in-law with some decency.

In defiance of Minister Weasely's fondest hopes the Lord of Malfoy Manor still meddles in ministry affairs, and recently managed to stop some legislation for the protection of house elves proposed by Weasley senior at the request of his daughter-in-law, the president of SPEW.

Cornelius Fudge was never re-elected as Minister of Magic. Lucius obligingly helped him to drown his sorrows in his inexhaustible supplies of Scotch, until Mrs. Fudge finally became so fed up that she had her husband committed to St. Mungo's for a withdrawal treatment.

Lucius' law-suit against his ex-wife took an unexpected turn when Narcissa used her feminine wiles to ensnare the unsuspecting Mr. Tethering, who in a state of the deepest infatuation ended up defending her successfully. The advocatus lost his promised fee of 100.000 galleons and the customs of his rather irate client who put several illegal hexes on him, but gained a ratherelegant town home in London and the companionship of one of the most talked-about literary figures of the day. Narcissa is currently working on a biography of her sister Bellatrix under the working title: _My Sister, the Death Eater_.

Severus Snape finally gave up waiting around for the impossible, quit his job as potions master at Hogwarts and instead accepted the vacant position as DADA teacher at Durmstrang. He still visits his goddaughter whenever he can and seems much more relaxed and friendly these days, particularly as he has finally found himself in a romantic attachment to Isadora Akers, the Durmstrang astronomy teacher. It has done wonders for his mood. He even wears grey and maroon now on occasion!

Professor Sedgewick did get to write is book about magic and wizards after all. However, it was called _Monsters in our Midst_ and its lurid paranoia effectively cost him any academic credibility he might have had before. He did gain a considerable following among severalextremist muggle fringe groups, who fully endorsed his proposal to re-instate the inquisition and legalize witch-burnings.

Eleanor continues to work as a consultant to the corps of aurors where Marigold Brannock progressed on a stellar career and eventually became an Unspeakable. She never returned to Durmstrang, but is widely acclaimed as the inventor of the Sartorius Feint and a collection of other highly effective spells and wards.

* * *

- The End -

* * *

As before I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to read and review my latest story. Your comments have been much appreciated, and I hope you've enjoyed the ride.

When I started "Riddle", _Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince_ had not yet been published. With the new developments in the Potterverse I would have had to rewrite most of my story (as a matter of fact there would have been no story, as we now know that poor Lucius continues his imprisonment in Azkaban and is still married to Narcissa, who seems to be rather more loyal and loving towards him than I have ever depicted her. Sorry, Cissy!).

I therefore decided to continue with the original premise of my tale, even though that showed Dumbledore alive and well, and Severus Snape continuing as potions master at Hogwarts – two very unlikely developments...

"Riddle" will bring my four Sartorius stories to a close, and if I write about Lucius again, at will be in a different setting and with other characters.

For now I wish everyone the very best. I hope we meet again over another story.

"Free Lucius Malfoy!"

"Trust Severus Snape!"


End file.
